Perils of Living in the Woods

At least one of the perils of living in the woods is that of falling trees. Forget snakes, poison ivy, wild animals consuming your garden and livestock, nothing has to be addressed with more immediacy than a fallen tree on your storage shed or across your road. A few years ago, after one of the hurricanes pummeled the East Coast, heavy rains loosened the soil around the tree roots. One tree fell onto the shed and crushed the entire upper story. This led to two years of clean-up and rebuilding. Now that the rebuilding is finished and the cleanup is done, we’ve had to deal with more falling trees and it feels never-ending.

Sometimes falling trees can be a blessing. One year, when my husband was out of town, a tree fell across the road on the night before Mother’s Day. Most women I know don’t enjoy Mother’s Day services. First, mother’s day talks at church relay how angel single women raised ten children while holding down three jobs and still managing to be the perfect mother or it’s the speaker’s personal ramblings about how much they love their mother because she never missed their baseball game—either way, it either makes you feel guilty that you aren’t that mother or you’re irritated that your mother was a flesh and blood woman and not one of these super legends and you’re not at the point in your life where you can accept that your mom has (hard swallow-gulp) flaws. So, in my excitement of not having to attend that particular Mother’s Day meeting, I called my girlfriend to relay my good news. Unbeknownst to me, her elderly father overheard her side of the phone call. So, it was at five in the morning that I heard the sound of the chainsaw humming faintly outside the house. I threw on some clothes and jogged down the road to find my friend’s father, wearing his Sunday best protected by an apron cutting up the offensive tree so I could make it to church on time. How could I not go after that? So much for missing out on Mother’s Day—I tried.

Earlier this spring, we came home after working long hours to find two trees down across the road. This meant that even though we were tired, we weren’t going to go anywhere until the tree was moved. Last month, another tree fell across the road a few feet down from the original spot. Just this week, again another two trees fell across the road in a different spot. Each time this happens, we have to drop whatever we’re doing and concentrate all our efforts and energy into moving entire trees off the road. We drag out the chainsaws, chains and tractor and get to work. Sometimes it takes a few days to get it all done. But, on the positive side, we’ll have wood for the winter . . .

Take Care, ALL

Hey, if you’re planning to buy our “Unplug From the Grid,” ebook, wait a few weeks. We are revamping it, adding to it and doing some reformatting to make it better. However, “The Nearly Painless Guide to Rainwater Harvesting” ebook is ready to go and I think it can help those wanting to find ways to get water without drilling a well. We just uploaded “The Nearly Painless Guide to Food Storage” in May and it’s doing well. If you get a chance, I would love to hear what you think of it.

 

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.

Ticks, Ticks and More Ticks

Here it is Spring and I’ve already picked 8 ticks off of my body. I will consider it a personal miracle if I can get through the summer without Lyme disease. The other night, I was laying in bed and felt a tickle on my arm–looked down and a freckle moved. These days, it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what’s a freckle and what isn’t. It’s gotten to the point that I’m spraying DEET on my clothes before I put them on for the day and around the door frame. It’s frustrating putting that kind of poison on my skin, being that I’ve been working too hard in the past couple years to eliminate packaged food from my diet and eat organic . . . I might as well live on Twinkies for the rest of my life since I’m either going to have Lyme disease or deal with nerve damage. At least Twinkies would be more fun.

Donned in rubber boots, pants tucked into them, the requisite DEET bath I trudged down to the garden. A long black snake lazed in the sun from one side of the road to the other. The last time I tried to move a black snake, he got a little cranky and lunged at me. This time I decided not to take the chance. I turned around and went back to the house. There’s a snake skin that still graces the rock next to the courtyard door. I don’t have the courage to remove it . . . and it’s a reminder that I need to be careful walking out there–it’s a war zone-me against nature.

Take care, ALL

P.S. My books doing great, thanks friends.

The other day, I wanted to go and check on my garden. I donned

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