Kicking the Can



Early morning walk

 I think I may have mentioned to you that I have a short attention span. Not the totally short attention span like some folks who can't follow a conversation to the end of a sentence or can never sit still. I am more typical of someone with an ADD diagnosis. I can zone in on something that I find fascinating. For instance, I spent 30 minutes this morning researching the chemistry, uses and qualities of carbamide. Really.

Until I was about 11 I was under the impression that I had inherited my paternal grandmother's build and looks. She was dark and small. I had visions of becoming a jockey. While outwardly doing math or science quietly at my desk, inwardly I was urging some modern day Man  O' War to a total upset at the Preakness. I mentally perfected all the jocky moves while everyone else just thought I was doing my school work. Sadly, under the influence of an onslaught of estrogen, I discovered that I had inherited the stout genetics of my German ancestors. I bargained with myself that I could perhaps be a sulky racer. They could weigh more than jockies. As I grew skyward and developed ankles the diameter of my friends' calves, I allowed those dreams to slip away.

choke cherry blossoms

Running Gear!

Today, those same genetics have blessed me with strong bones and durability. However, my inner jockey/athlete is perfectly camouflaged behind a frumpy, fat lady in ankle length prairie skirts and her husband's running shoes.. So, as I find myself walkng in the morning to try to uncover bits of the inner athlete, I once again find my short wired brain multitasking. Mere walking is not enough for this brain with its visions of grandeur. No, it has to find something to do. After watching daylight come and reviewing the taxonomy of the half million or so species of plants and animals on my walking route, it became bored. Until I found the beer can! Oh what joy as I kicked that can for 2 miles. My walk flew by. My heart was light. I had rediscovered something that had occupied endless hours of my childhood. I kicked away. I was light on my feet. I swerved and dived to keep the can down the middle of the roadway. It was only later, as I was revisiting the fun I had, that I thought ...of the ...neighbors!

The Can! Before Picture

I have good neighbors. Across the river, though, at least one set keeps a spotting scope set up in their front room. I happen to know they routinely glass the hill near my house for deer and elk. They are not nosey people, just avid outdoorsmen, but they have discovered a number of suspicious activities by accident while looking for critters. I know this because they have sometimes called me to ask if someone had permission to be on my property and things of that nature. Oh my...




The Can, After Picture. Safely stowed for next time...or not.



I can hear it now.
"Honey?"
"Yeah."
"You gotta see this!?
"Elk?"
"Um No! Come look!"
"What is she doing?"
"I don't know, it kind of looks like soccer moves, or square dancing."
"Did she just bounce something off her head?"
"Looks like a beer can."
"Does she drink?"
"I don't think so."
"Wow. This is pretty interesting. I don't think I have ever seen a fat lady move like that."
"She is probably going to hurt herself!"
"I can't watch,"
"Me either!"

So. If you are bored while walking and you find a can. It can be fun and good exercise. It can also affect your neighbors. I think beer cans should come with a warning like this. "The attorney general has determined that kicking this can for two miles in the sight of sane neighbors may be deterimental to your standing in the community."

There are some stories you should not tell on yourself. As soon as I publish this, I will probably decide this was one of them.

Lawana
P.S. I kind of hurt my knee a little bit with this shuffle kick maneuver. It is okay though, I tell folks it is a soccer injury.

Hanging Out

                                                                                  


I have been without an outdoor clothesline for about a year. It hasn't mattered too much because this past winter was more conducive to indoor drying. I am, however, very excited to get the new posts up and the string run. My beloved salvaged some nice heavy weight clothesline posts and set them in the ground. That provided a good lesson in post tamping for my 9 year old son. Saturday, I got the line and enlisted the help of some friends who were visiting to help me get the line taut and fend off the Yellow Jackets that were building in one of the cross pieces.
                                                                                  

                                                                              
As soon as it was tight and secure, I hung two loads of towels on it. It was a breezy afternoon  and the towels dried in about 15 minutes! Of course a few blew completely off the line onto the barbed wire where they also dried quickly. I personally don't mind perforated towels. I could have saved money on clothes pins and simply strung my line with barbed wire. This is the kind of thinking that frightens my husband sometimes. All I have to do is get that particular gleam in my eye and he gets concerned. Thank God he is more normal and has a better eye for aesthetics or this place would look like the Rube Goldberg version of Little House on the Prairie.

Clint has a decided sense of the fitness of things. He makes a mean bed, leaves the kitchen sparkling if he does the dishes, and folds towels so they look like the pictures in the catalog, all while riding in on a white horse to rescue me from...ugly makeshift home improvements such as barbed wire clothes lines. He is also very adept at keeping clocks and pictures straight on the walls.Our clothesline suits both of us. It was free and recycled which makes me happy and fits our budget and it fits into the natural landscape as if it grew there. That pleases my handsome husband.
                                 
                                                                                

I would like to challenge you, wherever you are to make a place for line drying your clothes. Of course it is politically correct to be green these days, but there is more to a clothesline than that. The clothesline gets you outside early in the morning and again later in the day to bring the clothes in. It encourages sensual pleasure. The clothes look pretty as they dance and flutter on the line. They smell heavenly as no laundry additive can mimic. They feel different, sometimes rougher, sometimes whipped to a soft suppleness. (You can always air fluff before or after hanging to soften your clothes if line drying makes them too stiff) You can even close your eyes and listen to your clothes on the line. If you want to know what the clothesline experience should be like, hang some sheets and let them play their pied piper song to your small children. Before you know it they will be reveling in their senses and you will be ensuring that another generation of people will associate clothes on the line with pleasant memories.