March 8, 2026
“From the Back Porch”
You’re a bit late, but that’s okay by me. I’m just back here on the back porch waiting for you. I have every confidence that you were involved in something important. While waiting, I walked to the wooded east-corner of our fenced-in backyard.
You may not remember me having a huge pile of pine tree sections tossed among every grabbing piece of vine and bush in the area. By the way, the vines and brush actually grew up after the log sections were dumped.
Michael was the gentleman who cleared the whole area out for me. He worked for Joe Jackson, the other gentleman who was in charge of the project. Joe is older than I am, so he furnished the trailer and a nice young man named Michael to load and haul a wheelbarrow back and forth to the trailer parked in my driveway. Michael hauled no-telling how many wheel barrels loaded with tree sections. Of course, he had to cut a lot of vines and yaupon bushes to even get to it.
Michael was one tough son-of-a-gun. The young man completed the entire project in four hours. I thought it would take him two days. I have carried out some tough jobs in my day, but there’s no way I could’ve removed those pine tree sections and all of the vines and limbs in four hours.
Even if I got Kay and both my neighbors to help, we couldn’t have done it that fast. Big Al is the only Hayter brother who might come close to being able to haul everything to the trailer. Had I offered to pay Al the same as I paid Mr. Jackson, I know that he’d say, “No, but you might call Larry and Dennis.” Those two are the oldest of the four brothers and are both less healthy than me. No way could I handle that job. Maybe by Christmas.
With that out of the way, let’s take a few minutes to listen to the birds. A great sound those tree sitters. I think I heard a warbler. In the background I can now hear a sparrow. Wait! Wow, that sounded like the Dark-eyed Jurico. That is an actual bird; I’ve just never seen one. The thing was dark enough to hide itself well.
Not to completely change the subject, let me tell you about last night, I read that the people in Europe do not put their chicken eggs in the icebox. So, let’s spend a few minutes in Europe. I’ve never been there. I have all confidence that I’ll be able to say that on my deathbed.
I noticed that one of you asked why egg-eaters in Europe keep their eggs out of the fridge. First of all, we both know that Europeans aren’t like us, nor DO they like us. But they do eat eggs, just not ours. For one thing they think it’s dumb that we store our eggs in a refrigerator. It just so happens, if you keep your eggs below 50 degrees, it can cause the shell to develop both moisture and bacteria. When you’re finally ready to eat the thing, bacteria could have seeped into the yolk. No joke. If you eat a bad yolk, it could keep you seated in the restroom for a good while.
Europeans don’t clean the shell of their egg until they’re ready to cook them. The yolk not the shell. When cleaning an egg with poop on its shell, there could be some of the fecal matter that seeped into the yolk, thus making someone sick. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen in Britain.
I’ve got many more fascinating things to share with you, but I must go to Home Depot to get a few bags of big rocks. You see, after all of the wood and vines were hauled off, I saw three holes dug under the fence. The back neighbor’s two dogs dug their way into my yard a couple of weeks ago. The third hole under the fence is likely a very large armadillo. Because no dog would intentionally dig from my backyard into someone else’s. An armadillo? In truth they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. That’s why I never write about them.
end
hayter.mark@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment