A rooftop experience before the big heat hits.

“Terrapin encounter”

    ROOFTOP -- Don’t shove. There’s plenty of shade for everyone up here. I doubt we’ll be climbing to the roof many times this summer, so we must take advantage when we can. Maybe we oughtta pull an all-nighter next time. Scratch that. 

    I don’t have a good feeling about the summer. Only good news is that I’ll likely not have to mow the lawn all that much. Our water supplier has upped the price considerably, so we’ll not be doing much watering.

Hopefully, Kay took some notes when we visited that desert garden near Fort Davis a couple of weeks back. Maybe she can find some hardy groundcover. Let me tell you, there is some vegetation that’ll take root on a claw hammer. It’s thorny as all get out, but hardy. Hates water and soil.

Speaking of tough stuff, a little earlier today I found a turtle (terrapin) making it’s way to the backwood. I called Kay, ‘cause she’s crazy about turtles… the non-snapping ones. She hurried out the backdoor and said, “Where? Where is it?” I pointed over to the base of the giant oak.

Kay uses a different voice for practically every animal she greets. Her turtle voice is one of my favorites. It’s the most non-threatening voice in her repertoire.  They oughtta fly her to the UN and have her sit in on peace negotiations. -- “Okay, Mrs. Hayter, we want you to read this document like you’re reading it to turtles.”  

    Kay snapped a few photos of the terrapin and then tried to figure out whether or not she should move the thing to the edge of the wood. She has little faith in terrapins making wise decisions. She’s seen the results of too many highway crossings gone bad.

Although she thought the vegetation on the other side of the driveway a better choice, she let the shelled slowpoke plod along in the direction of the trees in the very back.

Kay knows plants. Let me tell you what she did this morning. The girl grabbed the broom and went outside and beat our tomato plants. Only one of ‘em is blooming, so I figured it was a discipline thing.

She told me that if you sweep and shake your tomato plants with a broom, it helps with the pollination and gets them more excited about producing tomatoes. I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff. We’re living in the same house, and I’m not getting wind of any of it. She must’ve recently learned it from a gardening show… or a broom infomercial.

    The cicadas are out in full force this evening. Listen to those things. When we were kids, we called ‘em locusts. You can imagine how confused I was when Dad took us to see “The Ten Commandments.” The Egyptian locusts didn’t sound or look a bit like our neighborhood variety. Kids are so dumb.

    There sure are a lot of tiny ants up here. They look like those black crazy ants. They’re not acting crazy, but we don’t want to set ‘em off. Everyone act like you’ve got good sense, and maybe we can forestall an all out melee. 

    If there were fire ants on the roof, we’d take a different approach entirely. I’m embarrassed to say, but I’ve actually shown some sympathy to the fire ants at ground level. I didn’t put out poison bait last year, ‘cause it was so dry. Just hated to add to their agony. When a guy shows mercy to a fire ant, he likely needs some couch time with a brain person.

    Whoa. Smell that? Pork chops. That vent to your right is attached to the range hood. Since she retired, Kay has been cooking up a storm. Practically forced me out of “her” kitchen. I’m not crazy about doing the cleanup, but it definitely requires less thinking than cooking.

    I hope those crazy ants don’t get a whiff of the chops. They’ll be on that vent like… crazy ants on a vent.

    I guess we’d best break this session up before I get yelled down to supper. I’d invite you in, but Kay never cooks as much stuff as I do. I’m big into leftovers. We’ll just call it quits now and try to meet again up here before it gets too miserable out. Maybe pull an all-nighter. -- No, that’s not happenin’.

END

To watch Brad and Mark’s video review of “Seven Leguas Restaurant” click on pic.