THE PAIN IN MY BUTT

We have bees. Not by choice. My sister bought them before she left for Alaska and just kind of ditched them. So for the past year, we’ve left them alone and they’ve left us alone. A few months ago, some guys from the local bee association came by to check on them and saw that they were in good shape. Honestly, I’d pretty much forgotten about them. After deciding that we shouldn’t let free bees go to waste, we decided to get involved. Since we don’t know the first thing about beekeeping, we bought a book on the subject and contacted a friend who’s an expert. He showed us how to extract honey. A few weeks later, we pulled about a gallon of liquid gold from the hive. We could’ve taken out more gallons, but then nothing would have been left for the bees sustenance through the winter. It’s not a good idea to completely rob them or else you’ll have to provide them sugar water as food, which can’t be as good as their own honey. I would say our first venture in beekeeping was a success. We even attended our first bee meeting ever. Not only was it interesting, they had a potluck buffet to boot–and who never says “no” to good food–this gal, (2 thumbs pointed at myself).

So, back to the pain in the butt thing. One night, I came into my dark living room and decided to sit in my favorite chair. I accidentally sat on a giant wasp. He stung the fire out of my butt, then when I tried to swipe him off, stung my hand. He was huge. Of course I crushed him afterward, even though he was going to die anyway, but I had to exact revenge. I spent most of the night with an icepack alternating between my butt and my hand. When the Benadryl kicked in, I finally had relief. But for the next few weeks, I couldn’t sit without feeling the welt on my hiney and then as the pain went away, the itching started and it lasted for more than a week. I think the offender in question was a Japanese Wasp. They’re known to hang outside beehives and literally eat little honey bees. From what I’ve heard, they can destroy an entire hive. Honestly, I can’t think of a more useless creature and I have a keen remembrance of the pain in my butt to prove it. Life’s always exciting around here . . . I just wish it weren’t so painful.

Take care, All.

P.S. I have my books up on Barnes and Noble site for any Nook fans out there.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unplugged-hillary-bergeron/1112136489?ean=2940014942355

And as always, Unplugged is available on Amazon. This is the 2nd edition. I went in corrected mistakes in the other addition and added a little more here and there.

When someone says, “Oh, she’s so hot,” it’s not because I’m really really good lookin’.

Is it my imagination, or have the summers been hotter than they’ve been in the past few years? We’re in the midst of another heat wave across the east and this time I’m almost prepared–mentally. I knew it was coming and I’d devised a personal SOP (Army’s Standard Operational Plan) on how I was going to handle it. First, I’d have 360 fan coverage, if that wasn’t enough, I would shed clothes until I reached optimal comfort. If that didn’t work, then the unheated hot tub. When I was too shriveled to sit any longer, then I’d have to spend the day at the library or go window shopping until the stores kicked me out.
A few days ago, news stations blasted that we’re going to be hit by record high temperatures. My anxiety rose much like a thermometer in a sauna. For the last few years, it’s been so hot in the summer I’ve about cooked from the inside out making me feel as though I’m in a state of constant, never-ending menopausal hot flashes. Right now, it’s night and I’m sitting in a room with a fan blowing on me from a few feet away and it isn’t enough.
All last winter, Mt. Bob and I have been scheming on ways to keep the house cool for the following summer. More fans–ice blocks in front of fans (not practical since we’d have to first freeze huge blocks of ice), spending most of the day in an unheated hot tube and window air-conditioner units. We thought we were onto something with getting a small window unit and running it for a few hours a day.
Mt. Bob set to work investigating this brilliant plan. How much power does it use? Can we run it off the inverter? If we ran it off the generator, how much would it cost per hour for that small measure of comfort? We even called a solar company and asked their opinion. Our hopes dashed as the man laughed at us, then he said that maybe we should just open a window. When we mentioned our windows were all open and that we lived in the deep south, he callously said “that’s your first mistake, I’d never live in the south.” So disheartened and slightly annoyed at his rudeness, we gave up the idea of a window unit. I’m sad to say another summer will go by without finding a way to cool the house from the incessant heat.
My friend’s house, which is located in a holler and is surrounded by huge trees, is comfortable, while mine feels like the inside of a pizza oven in the middle of the night. To escape, we used to be able to jump in the car and go somewhere. It didn’t matter where, just as long as the air-conditioning was blowing in our faces. But for the past few years, the air-conditioning broke in not one, but our second car as well. Talk about bad luck. We’d kicked around the idea of getting it fixed, but decided that eating and paying our bill was probably a better plan, although there were times I seriously doubted our judgment–usually when beads of sweat were rolling down my back.
This year, I’d decided I’d had enough. I pulled up to one of those mom and pop service shops and asked to have it looked at. An hour later, it was fixed and I only had to shell out fifty dollars for this priceless gift. Now I’m irritated that I’d spent the previous two summers arriving at church with my hair wind-blown–and not in a nice carefree way, and it would’ve taken only fifty bucks to save myself the personal harassment of nature’s beast (heat).
Feeling emboldened, I brought in the second car and it was fixed too, but this time for quite a lot more–I don’t want to go into details, it’s still too painful to talk about. Now I have two cars, both with air-conditioning. Now if there’s only something I can do about my house everything would be perfect…or at least I wouldn’t completely melt.

Take Care, All

Here’s the trailer for my new mystery novel:

Exercise equipment and good clothes hangers.

I admit that I occasionally use my treadmill for a clothes dryer. Why waste the space when you need it? But since the treadmill purchase, I’ve used it quite a bit. Yes, there were long stretches of laziness, but then I get back into a routine when I’m not in the midst of some cold, flu or injury. But since good health is a life-long endeavor, I’ve decided to try harder to be good to my body. This is the only one I’m going to get and I can’t run down to Wal-Mart and pick up a new trim model, although that would make a great science fiction novel–so I’ve got to take care of the one I’ve got. Come to think of it, the only model I could afford was the lumpy cellulite-infested model anyway–sexy body 10.1 for $29.99.

So since I can’t purchase my healthy body, I realized I was going to have to work for it. I’ve discovered exercise equipment is something I never have to purchase brand new. All I have to do is wait until about April or May and there’s an abundance for sale on the secondary markets. I’ve been working out with hand weights for quite some time and we decided it was time to upgrade to better equipment. So the hunt was on for a good home gym. Yesterday we found one. Since my husband was singing the praises of an AB lounge, I decided to pick one of those up too. As we trekked across Tennessee yesterday, we came across people selling their equipment. They all had something in common–they both gave excuses why the equipment didn’t work for them–too busy, too much space . . . lost interest after buying it on a late night shopping network (at least she was honest about it). I decided I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to sell my home gym for a fraction of the price with a guilty expression, making noises about why I couldn’t exercise. It’s just way too embarrassing. Oh, something else, these people are so embarrassed, they just want to get what they can for it, so offer a lower price and they’ll usually take it. They just want the equipment out of their house so they don’t have to be reminded that they need to use it–I know, I’ve been there.

While putting it together and cleaning up the weights, I came across a very pregnant black widow spider–another drawback of buying something that’s been in the guy’s garage for any length of time. Also there are some pieces missing, but we’ve been able to find alternative pieces to replace them. I’m looking forward to doing this. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be that old woman in the body building competition the media writes about. I’ll be the one with all the stretch marks and the obnoxious amount of scars and that layer of fat I just couldn’t get rid of no matter what I do.

Take care, ALL.

If you haven’t had the chance to see my book trailer, feel free to take a look.

A day in the Life of a Homesteader

Hello friends,

I thought I’d just write a little about the happenings around here.  Nothing earth shattering.  The wound on the leg is pretty much healed although it itches like crazy.  It will probably leave a scar, but then again I’m old enough that my body looks like a road map anyway.  All these scars are like my own personal time line.

Robert is dragging trees out of the forest today and cutting for next year’s wood supply.  He had to fix the log splitter’s engine because it was dragging.  He’s constantly maintaining the tractor, from the engine to the flat tires to keep it working.  He finished rebuilding the damaged storage building from when the tree fell on it last month.  Today, besides dragging trees, he’s pumping water to the orchard for our water tanks.  We have three 1100 gallon tanks and since it’s been just the two of us here, we’ve only used about 20-30 gallons of water a day and that’s with washing clothes.  Today he even offered to make chili for lunch.  Of course, I’m not going to say no to that.  The only downside is that he likes it spicy and I would not like to burn my mouth with each bite, but sacrifices have to be made if I want to get out of cooking.  I’ll just keep a gallon of milk handy.  I would say he’s pretty durn handy around here.

I spent some time in the orchard yesterday clearing more branches that we’d cut a week or two ago and picking rocks.  It’s looking good up there.  The apricot and peach trees are blooming and everything else is budding.  I’m planning to plant my cherry bushes in the garden today and later this week transfer my tomato starts to soda bottles, which are deeper for the roots.  It’s too soon to put them out.

My yellow cat Scrappy came back.  His original name was Leo, but because of all the scrapes he gets in, I renamed him Scrappy.  Of course, he has a limp and a tear behind his ear and another abrasion on his tail.  I have no idea where he goes or what he gets into, but I believe he lost that last round. He is such a lovable cat and yet such a fighter. I think I’ll post a picture of him so you can see what I’m talking about.  He’s not a looker, but he’s a real charmer.

Today, we had to go down to the storage units in town and collect our two dogs.  The owner told us he’s going to put us on speed dial.  I just can’t bring myself to tie them up 24-7.  It makes mean dogs and what kind of quality of life is that?  Anyway, we have our pups back now.  I thought if we got them fixed it would solve the problem of their wandering, but maybe it will take some time.  Our last Pyrenees it took about a year.  So time will tell with these two.

So besides taking some time today to work on my paying job, I’ve been painting and working on my new book. Hopefully with this new post I haven’t put you to sleep.

Take care, All

By the way, if you haven’t seen my book trailer yet, take a peek.

This is my Scrap-man in all his glory.

This is Scrappy getting his belly scratched.

Valentine’s Day Chain Saw Massacre and my War on Weeds

Hi everyone,

The weeds around here have a special gene that makes me believe they were created in a lab by a mad scientist or they’ve had some kind of radiation that turns them into super-power weeds.  In one season, the area in and around my garden turns into a gardeners version of hell with weeds that are upwards of 18 feet tall.  In fact, I spend more time weeding my way into the garden then actually attacking the weeds around the vegetables that I plant.  I’ve tried everything–put down old carpeting, plastic, cardboard boxes for pathways and yet the weeds seem to grow right through anything I put down and prevail.  Every year, I don my armor and head out to battle.

Saturday was just such a day.  I was out clearing the weeds around the garden with the chainsaw.  Yep, you heard it right, I was clearing weeds with a chainsaw.  You have to understand that we have these tree sapling type weeds that are about 5 inches in diameter.  They block the sun from entering the garden and put out giant leaves that cast shadows.  My harvests end up being very small because what tomato can compete with that?

So there I was, standing on uneven ground using my chainsaw to cut the tall weeds when it bumped back and grazed my thigh.  Before everyone gets too excited, it really wasn’t that bad.  I’ve had serious injuries before and this was more like I’d tripped on a gravel road and tore the skin off my palm.  Anyway, bottom line, my favorite jeans are ruined and of course I’m hurting from the skin grazing.  I didn’t feel any pain at first, but saw the blood and knew I’d been cut.  So I shut off the chainsaw and hobbled out of the woods.

As I said before, the chainsaw was a Valentine’s Day gift.  It would be ridiculous to blame my husband for my injuries.  I’ve used that chainsaw many times over and never cut myself, but the rule of odds weren’t in my favor on Saturday.  But I do want to bring up the fact, that as an American woman I received a chainsaw for a Valentine’s Day gift?  Really, a chainsaw?  I know I’m lucky to get anything at all.  I’ve heard all the arguments, that Valentine’s Day is really a made-up holiday to get money out of men……blah, blah, blah.  With that I roll my eyes.  I’ve also retorted with, “it’s sad you guys need to be reminded that you have a special someone.  You may choose another day if you’d like, but I do require at least a small token of appreciation.”  For you guys out there, please don’t get your ladies Tupperware, blenders or chainsaws for gifts.  If your lady needs these things, just come home with them randomly and you will get a better response than if you’d given it to them on Valentine’s Day–I promise.  It’s simple—flowers and chocolate.  I’d so like to not associate the skin missing on my thigh with Valentine’s Day (even though I don’t blame my husband-had to throw that disclaimer in there).

Take care, All

Of course I’m going to add a plug for my book–what kind of self-respecting self-publisher would I be without it:  http://www.amazon.com/Unplugged-ebook/dp/B006X7FEDM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331103079&sr=8-1

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