God bless the Mom

So I have been staying in my mom's cottage while I am working on the Airstream, which I purchased as a place I could live right away but it did not end up being that way... So I have been in and out of the cottage for the past couple weeks, which is great because it is right on the creek (swimming any time of the day or night) and it is beautiful and I have a decent amount of privacy here. The other day, Mom made a comment about me having a lot of "organized clutter" around. I said, "what are you talking about?" and she just said "go look in the cottage." I went in and looked in the cottage. All the counter tops were covered with drying flowers and herbs. A pair of crow wings was curing with salt on a piece of cardboard on the coffee table. An otter pelt was draped over the chair, and my shotgun was on the kitchen table. Oh, that's what she meant. "That's not clutter, Mom-- those are projects." She cracked up. God bless the Mom who is amused by that use of her space. Today she called me (I was in Asheville attending to AV, who just had a baby boy yesterday!!!) and said, "Dana, I've been meaning to ask you...why is there a rattlesnake in my freezer in a Rice Crispies box?" I replied, "It's not a rattlesnake, Mom, it's a black snake." She paused. Then, "Oh, well, why is it in my freezer?" "Because I needed a place to put it Mom. Is that OK?" She said, "Yeah, it's fine for now."

Update

Notes on July 5th and 6th:
Hot Springs hosted its big fireworks and street party on July 5th. I walked downtown with a posse of friends, toting some Ancient Ancient Age bourbon in a Tazo Tea bottle which I consumed throughout the night. 4th of July (or 5th of July in this case) in Hot Springs is very interesting. Masses of people emerge from God knows where. Crowds and crowds of rednecks and other people gather in quantity to create an evening of pure, utter, enjoyably weird chaos. The town spends about half of its annual budget on a fireworks show that is way too big for its britches. Afterwards people set off explosives wherever they want- at the pub, in the street, what have you. There are hot dogs and nachos and deep fried oreos for sale, and stupid kids' games at which you can win second hand prizes (including some Happy Meal toys...) There is a street band called Country Sounds that is half cheezy half awesome (just like I like it). All the old timers and families go there. Right next to that is the pub where rock cover bands play really loudly for the wild crowd. I went to both. I became inebriated. I danced to Country Sounds with an old old man. I danced with a rowdy crowd to "Kemistry" right in front of the stage. I dropped a beer. I got hit on by a young dude that had on a shirt that said "Gr8-N-Bed." Gross. I staggered home and had a headache the next day, but it was fun and wacky enough to be worth it.
July 6th I went to A's birth class with her. No technical details of birth were discussed. Rather it was more like a support/ discussion group of topics such as: What do you need from your partner during labor? and How will you respond when people critisize your parenting? and What will you do if you can't make it to the hospital in time and you have to deliver the baby somewhere on the side of the road in the car? It was interesting, and I can also see how A sometimes gets frustrated with the class... After that we went to a most lovely gathering at B and C's 5 acres out in Swannanoa. It was my first time there, and it was ever so lovely. We ate wonderful food from the garden, visited with great people, soaked in a cozy wood fired hot tub, and marvelled at all the awesome permaculture projects B and C are working on. I was very impressed, and loved the place. How did I get so lucky to know so many awesome people? B and I were hugging goodbye, and a shooting star flew over us, and right then and there we decided we would both blog about it...
Oh, ps, I was given a really special prize that night. I think it looks good in the Airstream. Thanks!

Independence Day

Please enjoy this graphic created by artist JDH IV in honor of Independence Day. Isn't he something? I celebrated July 4th by milking 4 goats, letting a pet rat crawl on my neck just to see how it felt, digging a water hole in the creek in my soon to be camper trailer site, and harvesting many red clovers from a beautiful neighboring pasture. Then I swam in a muddy creek, soaked in a hot tub, drank red wine, showed off my new (old) Airstream to S and M, watched a few minutes of Being John Malcovich, ate veggie burgers with S and M and went to bed. It rained last night, which is really really good. It was a good 4th of July. I didn't go to the rodeo as I had intended, but that's OK because that means I didn't have to spend the extra energy bracing myself to be able to tolerate the blatent exploitation of many animals in order to absorb the wonder of a quite interesting cultural phenomenon. Tonight will be Hot Spring's annual fireworks show, at which I will see more people than I knew could fit in this entire county and their children, and I will dance to old country tunes played by a highly interesting band on a stage set up in the road by the railroad tracks. It will most likely be awesome. Cheers.

hibiscus

Calling all faithful readers! I am looking for information regarding the lovely flower known as hibiscus. I have developed a very recent, impossible to ignore craving for iced hibiscus tea, which I have been drinking every day since. I have never cared much for this tea before. I am looking for any and all information regarding this plant: herbal, botanical, folkloric, agricultural, whatever. Does anyone know which cultivars to grow for the tea? I am also interested in any information about other related plants- rose of sharon, hollyhock, manihot, mallow, you name it, I care.

Mercury? Retrograde?

People like to go around blaming human weirdness on the planets. Like, for example, last night. SG and I decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean on DVD. We decided to watch it outside on her back deck on her computer. The air was fresh and cool and the moon was out. We got all cozy with sleeping bags and lawn chairs, and cookies. We went to press play, and the computer wouldn't do anything. We messed with it for 20 minutes or so, and finally decided the computer was screwed up and went inside to watch it on the TV/DVD player. Well, we got all settled in there and hit play, and the movie came on. Ahh, the movie was just beginning when for some reason the sound of Pirates of the Caribbean stayed on, but the picture switched over to a movie that was in the VHS player- David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals. Suddenly we were watching a beaver frantically chew a piece of wood, while hearing the dramatic music of the intended Feature Presentation. We enjoyed that for a moment, laughing our asses off, and then SG somehow fixed the problem. We turned the movie back on, and settled in once again. In about 5 or less minutes the TV blew out. Just quit. Forever. SG checked everything. It was dead. We moved back outside to the back deck and got my computer out. This was our last resort because my computer's volume is so low, it's nearly impossible to listen to a movie. But we were so invested by that point nothing was going to stop us. We turned my computer on, popped the video in, leaned in so we could sort of hear, and we were off. It was spectacular. Johnny Depp with his eye shadow. Keira whatever her name is doing whatever she does, which seems to be the same in every movie. Hollywood at its finest. Every time a train or a car went by we couldn't hear the movie, but it was sort of OK because it was so predictable. About halfway through, we started hearing mysterious noises coming from the back of the yard. We turned the movie off and listened for a while. It was some weird animal noises. We thought maybe cats, but, no, it wasn't cats. After a few rounds of the noises, I crept back there to investigate. There were cats back there, but they were silent. Finally we realized the animal noises were coming from inside a neighbor's house, and it was nothing other than 2 middle aged hillbillies making whoopy. We turned the movie back on and finished it. Supposedly all the glitches that accompanied that movie viewing were because of Mercury in Retrograde.

Eagle takes out deer

Watch this-it's only 15 seconds long.

Slingshot repair

So over the past 10 years, I have been friends with and become quite comfortable with the "M" family. They are the ones with all the goats, for all you people who know them... I have spent many a morning, afternoon and evening sitting around their kitchen with them, chewing the fat, cracking jokes, eating good food, bantering with the whole clan, watching the girls grow up, etc. About a week or 2 ago, I was at the kitchen table, chatting with RM and the girls, and I was mindlessly playing with some weird tool device that was on the table. When RM noticed me messing with it, she developed a big shit eating grin and informed me that it was a castrating device that she had just used on the goats that morning. I put it down. RM went on to explain how it works. It has 4 little prong-nubs around which you attach a tiny, thick rubber band. Then you squeeze the handles and the nubs move apart, thus stretching the rubber band open. The rubber band is stretched open enough to place over the testicles of the poor young goat, where it is left to cut off the circulation of the balls for the next 3-4 weeks. During that time, the balls shrivel up and eventually fall off. Delightful.

Flash forward to last night. I was getting ready to go to a party of young hip Hot Springs people (peers), and I heard that they were going to have lots of alcohol and maybe paintballs. Well, the thought of quantities of alcohol didn't excite me much, and neither did the paintballs- that is until I spotted my slingshot while I was getting ready. Slingshotting paintballs is really fun. However, my slingshot has been in disrepair for almost a year because the rubber broke and I got some replacement rubber, but I couldn't get the damned thing on because the rubber tubing was too damn tight to slide over the nubs. Do you see where this is going? The castrating device flashed into my head, and visions of slingshot paintballs flooded my psyche... I rushed up the road to RM's kitchen with my slingshot and replacement rubber tubing in tow. Sure enough, after several tries, the tubing was effectively placed on the slingshot nubs with the castrating device. I was very delighted.

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As it turned out, repairing the slingshot with the goat castrating device was by far the best thing that happened to me last night. I went to the party with SM (bless her heart) and after a couple hours of being caught in the middle of a big ass water balloon and water gun fight, I had an asthma attack (induced by a combination of very vigorous air guitar which left me breathless and then way too much second hand cigarette smoke) and left before dusk became dark. I didn't even shoot my slingshot once.