Into The Mystic

I was going to title this post 'Building a Mystery' until I stopped and read the lyrics and was completely horrified. I owned this CD and played it to death. I once had a guy friend who said he wanted to make love to her voice. If you love the song don't ruin it by reading the lyrics. Boy is that woman angry! I got nuthin' on her. Jeeze.

Yesterday I built a fence. There is a commercial for a big box store called Lowes (at least I think that's what the commercial is for). Traditional suburbanites are working on their homes and gardens all the while saying things they won't do and how they'll finish the task they meant to finish and then stop right there. The commercial ends with a guy saying he's going to read comic books. Oh my. Well, ok, that's commentary right there.

I don't want to read comic books. OK, maybe Neil Gaiman's comic books but that's about it. I make myself keep going when I'm working outside because I know that if I stop any time before 5 PM I'll fall down for the rest of the day and be horribly bored because my mind is still going and the idea of reading a book when I can be working outside is just not acceptable. It's not what I want.

I am task oriented but non-linear. I wander away, do some other things, maybe I don't finish them and I wander back. Eventually most things get finished unless I realize I'm nuts (VERY rare) or realize I don't really want to do that.

I remember that I was wandering around the property with my crackberry camera. I was initially looking for flat stones because we actually have quite a few that are flat on one side. I have no idea how this happened unless that glacier that came through the other day was moving like a cuisinart. I am not carrying stones, I'm just knocking them forward from the stone wallish thing (it' just a pile of rocks surrounding the property and not high enough to really be much of a wall). I see the Foxglove is back and I try to do the math. How many years ago did David and I try to 'naturalize' that part of the marsh? I guess it would have to be 2006, the first summer we lived here. I haven't seen it since but I guess I missed it because there it was, large as life and two little babies a few feet away.

Momma was about 4 feet from her original location with one baby off to the left and a little closer to the marsh.

 

 

The other baby was situated right about where Momma started. Why does Digitalis travel this way? How? And what is happening during the off years?

 

I don't know how I got to the fence. I know I was wandering and playing with my food and letting the bunny out (Lulu promptly escaped fence which is apparently NOT bunny proof and thankfully she decided to go right back where she belonged when I tried to corral her). I think I was measuring. I Surrendered to paying $40 after taxes for cattle panels and trying to work out the most efficient way of avoiding more than 6 panels. I can do one and a half on one side of the house and two on the other. So that one half becomes a wicked big gate of some sort. 

It must have been a gestalt moment. Up against the house on the 2 panel side were the (3) 4 x 8 sheets of 3/8 plywood we bought a few years ago for the ghetto pool experiment gone bad and (4) 4 x 4 x 8 sticks. OK, fence posts or whatever. I like calling them sticks. Big freakin' sticks!

I didn't exactly do the math. Well maybe I did. I didn't lay out my fence line but I eyeballed it. I started digging all the while thinking I really needed to stop and run to the local hardware store for a couple bags of quick set and there was something else I wanted. I didn't feel like stopping. This is what happens when I get super focused and don't wander much further than a 40 foot radius. If there's one thing I have in abundance it’s rocks:

 

The hole was 24" deep and mostly came with its own rock supply. I measured and dug another. Turned out I measured 80" not 8'. Oops. That's ok; I can always work something out. I should note that the second fence post went in at a quarter turn and had to be pulled up and started over. I should also note that I still have no idea where my hammers (and I know perfectly well I own plural hammers) have wandered off to. My choices were:

1. My meat tenderizer (really good for tapping in brads but not so much 9 pennies)
2. A rock (oh please, only if I absolutely have to and even then I suspect things might end badly.
3. A rubber mallet. Guess which I went with. Heh.

That's a 6 x6 in front of the fence. I have a couple of those too and no doubt they'll come in very handy some day.

uno y uno got a bit redneck because the ground is not flat. Ah hah! So that's what those fence guys are doing when they string those strings! Good thing I already confessed to the rubber mallet.

 

That's a 6 x6 in front of the fence. I have a couple of those too and no doubt they'll come in very handy some day.

uno y uno got a bit redneck because the ground is not flat. Ah hah! So that's what those fence guys are doing when they string those strings! Good thing I already confessed to the rubber mallet.

At this point I measured. I had to get within two feet of the invisible fence line. I would have liked to have used a tree for the forth post but that wasn't happening. Given the direction I chose to build my fence I needed another panel. Not happening. I wandered into the garage looking for loppers. Found a saw first. Not a hack saw, the big kind that's triangleish and has a wood handle on one end. I started sawing off branches. I started low to the ground and took off the branches with ends that dragged on the ground. When I ran out of those I had to reach well above my head and kind of close my eyes not to get saw dust in them. Eventually I created deadfall (well. it did fall. and it will be dead shortly). I put up the third panel and then rearranged the deadfall:

 

Peter Pan and the Lost boys got nuthin' on me! This is a better shot from a different angle:

 

Savasana:

It wasn't 5 yet so I got out my trusty wheelbarrow and collected my rocks. Rocks are REALLY heavy.

 

And this is where I stopped myself. (note to Kitt, those rocks are all flat on at least one side although I am still looking for free flagstone) I actually took the shovel to the earth at the base of the deck. You can't see it from this angle probably because I quit almost immediately after having a serious talk to myself about lunacy. There is lunacy and then there is lunacy. Alecto, how bad do you want it to hurt tomorrow?

Strangely enough it does not hurt at all this morning but it's coming for sure. Maybe I can prolong the inevitable with sunrise Bikram tomorrow.

Almost forgot: