Beauty Spot

It's the topic of conversation over dinner at the club as we break into a second bottle of wine. I don't know why but it's always seeps into the discussion. Sandwiched somewhere between vacation plans and bellyaching about the economy.

"....no, I think the horse is priced too high but I didn't see him. I had to run over to Beauty Spot--"
"--Oh, you were at Beauty Spot? So was I! What time were you there?"
"Around 1ish."
"Oh, too bad, I just missed you. John was there too. We both were there dropping stuff and then you wouldn't believe what I found..."

Sometimes it's hard to believe that anyone talks with such enthusiasm about a trip to the dump. But I get it.

First of all, it's utterly liberating to hurl something from the back of your truck, watch it sail into the air and smash into a million pieces atop a junk heap.

Secondly, you've got to love a trash-laden destination called 'Beauty Spot.'

A visit there is unlike the anonymous pilgrimage to the county dump -- which is a downright freaky experience -- hello, hoards of seagulls waiting to peck your eyes out. Beauty Spot is tucked away on a little country road and it's like Cheers -- the place where everyone knows your name.

Sometimes there's an employee manning the gate but usually he takes one look at old dented Chitty and waves us through.

The dump pile is nothing to admire -- a mini-mountain of discarded building supplies and household goods. Broken toys and car parts. Moldy mattresses and sodden furniture. In the summer, the place reeks of rot.

But what you can't miss is the crew of old men that sit on the sidelines, eyes fixed on each approaching truck as if they're watching a tennis match. Sitting in broken bar chairs, they size up what you're about to relinquish. And on the jersey wall they display the day's take. What they've promoted from junk to salvage: a rusty lawn mower, a three-legged coffee table, a gas can, a knob-less TV, two bags of gravel, a baby stroller, a piece of plywood with a sawed-out circle, a plastic lounge chair. All bound for the dump, now bound for a new life.

If they see something that they like, they wave, stopping you in mid heave. "Hold up there, honey. I'll take that for ya." If you've got something unwieldy, there's always someone around to give you a hand.

Admittedly, I've abused Beauty Spot. A sign at the entrance lists items that cannot be dumped. But I've found that you can deposit just about anything -- paint cans, turpentine, nuclear waste -- as long as you're wearing a tank top and shorts.

But I'd like to think that those forbidden substances don't make it to the junk heap. When the heavy-set guy in overalls smiles and says, "Sure honey, you can leave that here..." -- just maybe my hazardous waste finds a new life against the jersey wall.

Break out the rain gauge

I never thought I'd write about a gully washer twice in one summer.

Then again, I never thought I'd see a storm like the one Friday night.

It was perfectly sunny when I left at 6 to fetch the kids. It's a half-hour round trip and I tacked on a few minutes to grab milk at our little gas station. Clouds gathered in the distance but still, it was pleasant outside. In those two miles from store to farm, the sun bathed the corn fields in a golden glow.

But home was a different story. The ridge was already swallowed in a purple wall of clouds. The front was rolling in and it curled around the valley like a cat's tail. Dipped in white, the tip of the tail was off to the south-west. The body of the storm was heading toward us.

The horses felt the weather brewing. Normally, they're pretty indifferent to thunder and lightning but on this day they bolted for the run-in shed before the first rumble.

The clouds were so heavy with moisture they looked dirty-brown and smog-like, and when they finally arrived they were low enough to skim the silo.

There was no gentle rain, no gusty wind or fat drops warning of what was to come. The storm just took a big breath and descended. It closed in until there was nothing beyond a white tunnel. The power cut out immediately.


The poor kid cowered in the crawl space under the stairs sobbing quietly, and there wasn't much Martin and I could do to comfort him. We were too busy chasing drips.

It's an unsettling noise -- the sound of rain in the house. And pretty soon it wasn't just a few errant drips...it was pouring through the window frames like water in a sieve. We set out bowls, then pots and pans and finally emptied the linen closet and piled mountains of towels beneath the windows.

Afterwards, it looked like a tornado had passed through. Sure, the walls were standing, the roof was intact but with the towels and the cooking gear and the furniture hastily shoved aside, the place was a shambles.

The rain returned later that night, but not before the sky lightened and we all emerged from hiding.

I raided the barn fridge for beer and we watched the kids test the pothole depth in the driveway. The horses crept from the run-in shed, the cats slunk out of the weeds. Watching life emerge was easier than mopping up the house.

instant swimming hole

Aside from the leaks along the seams of the house, it could have been a lot worse. And with camping lanterns and a battery operated fan, we successfully weathered 10 hours without power.

But that's another story. Another blog.

no sign of power as far as the eye can see...

Gracias, Hadley the Barbarian...

.....for reprogramming the home phones to Espanol! I guess you're never too young to reach out and touch someone.

Just now, I notice that I have missed a llamada entrante, and we a nuevos mensaje.

But I cannot retrieve my nuevos mensaje.

Nor can I reprogram the telephono to Englisho...because el menu is in Espanol.

The solution? Hand the phone back to the kid and see if can she work her toddler voodoo and return the phone to Americano....

Me...I'm kicking off happy hour with a cerveza.

Kountry kasual

My plan is fool-proof:

1. double park in front of daycare
2. bolt through door
3. snatch children.

Mission accomplished before anyone notices my outfit: transparent tank top (bra also on display), board shorts (from mid-day leap in pool) and chunky, dirt-stained flip flops. To top it off, I smell like I've been mucking stalls.

Because I've been mucking stalls.

The daycare people won't notice. I'm one of those irritating parents who rides the line between closing time and being late. I pull up, brakes screeching around 5:57. They practically shove me out the door.

So this day is no different except that I look -- and smell -- especially disheveled. But that doesn't matter.

Until my cell phone rings. Justin's mom is running late, Martin says. Can you get Justin and hang out until she gets there?

Of course I'm happy to help another last-minute parent -- spare her the late fee and the dirty looks. But here's the rub: once you're booted out the daycare door, there's nowhere to go. Except the grocery store next door.

Like everything else in Sticksville, the store isn't a bastion of fashion. Many a farmer has ducked in wearing mud-splattered carhartts. It ain't the big city and you can slide by with a little grunge.

Still, I feel especially trashy as I roll down the aisles, pushing 2 kids and a spare -- all in the toddler age range -- while trying to conceal my revealing tank top and flee the distinctive aroma of horse pee.

I'll give the kids credit: they minimize the embarrassment level. Plied with goldfish, they keep the yelling to a dull roar. We only elicit a few smirks and one raised eyebrow from an uptight granny feeling up the tomatoes in the produce section.

We didn't even need food so I breeze up and down a few aisles before I can't stall any longer. Holding my head high, I present mac n' cheese and a 6-pack of Heineken to the cashier.

Fortunately Justin's mom appears to collect her kid, dispelling the appearance that I not only dress like Britney Spears, but get knocked up just as often.

I shouldn't care what other people think. But maybe it's time to reform my last-minute ways. Or at least keep a spare shirt -- and deodorant -- in the car.

Shopping

It's easy to miss the wooden placard and blow right past the driveway. A red, white & blue "We're Open!" flag is permanently wind-whipped around the farm sign. Now, I know to look for the white clapboard church with the green shutters. It's my landmark, perched just across the road. I make the turn and open the windows, setting the air conditioning free. Humidity wafts in and takes over.

The drive meanders though open fields before the woods swallow it up. You get a few breaks here and there -- a quick snapshot of corn and still-green soy -- before the trees blot out the view.

Someone's tried to patch the drive's deepest ruts -- dumping loads of gravel that spit from the wheels, and chunky rocks that ping against the car's belly. It's the hairpin turns in the road and fear of car damage that keep my foot hovered over the brake. One day those rocks will cost me a flat tire. I'm sure of it.

Still, it looks like I'm flying along. We haven't had rain in days and the car lifts a ghostly plume of dust in its wake.

At a sharp bend I come nose to nose with a sunburned farmer piloting a tractor. We both drift to the grass. If I'd been driving Chitty, I'm sure he would have waved, maybe smiled. But I'm in the soccer-mom-mobile, so he just acknowledges me with a nobby finger.

Finally the trees drop away and unveil a vista of hay and cattle behind barbed wire. It's a searing August morning and the cows converge in a pond, their white ear tags flashing in the sun.

The driveway dissolves into grassy ruts but this is the end of the line. There's a weathered farm house hidden behind a hodge-podge of outbuildings -- barns, silos, machine sheds and livestock pens. A dog announces my arrival. He barks ferociously but wags his tail at the same time. No one appears.

I park beside a gray building that looks like an airplane hangar and smells like cows and rubber. It's a graveyard for ancient farm machinery and tractor tires. The tires are discarded, abandoned wherever they might have fallen. They lean against fences, bowing the wood, and tip up against tractors and molding round bales.

In the airplane hangar I find the rusted fridge tucked in the shadows. The door sticks but with a tug, it cracks open and I take three $1 bills from the wire basket and deposit a fiver. There's just one carton left and it's bursting at the seams -- there must be a double yolker in there. I lift the top and spot the offender: one abnormally large orb among 11 perfect brown eggs, nestled in their cardboard craters.

Back behind the wheel I turn the car around, but not before wedging the carton between the mail and an old towel in the front seat. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

What's that chirping?

That's what the Boy wanted to know.

You know, the sound that leaks from the treetops on summer nights -- an ebb and flow of chirps that echo at dusk and build into a chorus by nightfall?

"Those are tree frogs," I say with certainty. Because I'm an adult and I know these things.

"Ohh," he says with wonder. He's a boy; frogs are cool.

And just like that I've planted another seed of misinformation, germinating in my 3-year-old's head. Just heap it on the pile. Along with jet streams.

That's what I called the white smoky line left in a plane's wake.

Martin caught the gaffe a couple days later. "No," he corrected him, pointing to the sky. "That's called a vapor trail."

But the Boy would not be persuaded. "It's NOT a vapor trail. It's a jet stream. My Mom SAID."

Therein lies the problem. My kid thinks I'm always right and Martin's wrong.

Why?

Because I told him that.

I don't recall the context, but we were in line at CVS when I said something like, "I'm always right. Your Dad is sometimes right....when he's not wrong."

A couple of weeks ago Martin and I were cruising around and ran into our neighbor, Liz. Her house backs up to the woods and the tree frogs were fabulously loud. Deafening. We had to raise our voices over the din.

They're not tree frogs, Liz explained. They're cicadas.

I looked up tree frogs on the internet. Turns out, they live near lakes, ponds, flood plains and cattail marshes. But not in our area. They make a bell-like "quank-quank-quank" sound. In fact, they're called the "cow-bell frog." (They sound like this.)

Of course a cicada is an insect with long veiny wings, big eyes and a green body. According to wiki, fried cicadas are a popular treat in the Chicago area. Really? (Here's their call.)

So out with tree frogs, in with cicadas.

Until the other night, when we were swimming in our neighbor's pool. To prove I'm not a complete dolt, I mentioned that the cicadas were especially loud.

Those aren't cicadas, Chet said. They're katydids.

Again, back to the computer.

Katydids (called Bush crickets by the Brits) look like grasshoppers. They rub their forewings together to "sing" during breeding season in late summer and early fall. (Behold, their sound.)That's how I found out: our local tree choir is of the katydid persuasion.

But there's no point clarifying that fact with the Boy. He likes to think that they're frogs.

And that's what I said they were.

And even when I'm wrong, I'm right.

The Aliens Return

I'm crouched by the window. Holding my breath, peering through the blinds. They're back.

Five minutes ago I was holed up in the cellar when I heard a muffled thump-thump-thump. I dismissed it as the dog.

But when the thumping cued again, I realized it might be UPS. And as I scaled the stairs, a third possibility dawned on me: it's not UPS, it's them back again.

In army crawl, I slithered along the wood floor beneath the windowsill and flattened my back against the wall. Then I squinted through the bottom windowpane. At the door were two women in floral prairie skirts. Yup, it was them, waiting and peering through layers of screen and glass.

"What the hell are you doing?" Martin came in the back door and into the kitchen for lunch.

"Shhh! It's the Jehovah's Witnesses." I motioned him back with my hand. "Get away from the hall. They'll see you in the doorway!"

That's the thing I've learned about the JW's. Not only are they persistent but they sense when someone's in the house. Sort of like the aliens in that Sigourney Weaver movie. They hone in on movement. Or body heat. Either way, they caught me a couple of weeks ago -- they were at their car when they spotted me.

It's also possible that the disciples sandwiched in the backseat watch and report any movement. "Someone walked by the window when you were at the door. Go back and knock again! Try the door knob!"

Martin refused to crouch down and hide. He gave me that "you're crazy" look and dug around the fridge for food.

I crept upstairs and watched my target from our bedroom. Eventually the door knockers retreated, glancing back a few times, before cramming in a car the size of a bread box. Then they watched the house for a while.

And I watched them.

Finally the JWs gave up and left. I beat the aliens this time. But they'll be back.

The Dog Whisperer

After this weekend's sheepdog training clinic, we learned a few things about Maisie and her herding style.

The most obvious lesson: allowing her to chase sheep around a field at warp speed -- in Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner fashion -- is not productive. Maisie should practice moving sheep in a small pen where she can gain confidence and we can correct her and teach her specific commands. Such as "come by," which tells her to move clockwise around the flock, and clockwise, or "away."

The other notable fact is that Martin has a knack for this. He quickly caught on to Jack's training tips.

Maisie moves the sheep; Martin moves Maisie

And he started thinking like his dog, as Jack often says, and even thinking like a sheep and sensing what they would do.

Jack passes on a few pointers

Our next job is to build a small pen for Maisie to practice. (I see a trip to Tractor Supply and a truckload of fencing and T-posts in our future. Sigh...).

We'll see how much dog and handler can learn before the next clinic in November.

Die grapes, die!

There was a time when I worried about the grapevine. When black rot blighted the berries and chewed away at the leaves.

Ah, those were the good old days.

Last year we tended to the vines in our typical fashion: we ignored them. We didn't clip them, water them or tie them up. We just let them grow au-naturale. And they propagated...

...Which just goes to show that any idiot can grow grapes.

But last summer the grapes became stunted when they should have been plump and ready to pick. Around July, dark smudges pocked the stems and half the fruit shriveled on the vine.

I didn't know what was going on, so I clipped a few sickly stems and took them to the local vineyard for an autopsy.

When I arrived, the vintner sized me up like a leprosy patient. He stood a few feet away. "First of all, that's black rot," he said gesturing at my fist of green. "Second of all it's spreads like crazy, so get it the hell out of here."

At home I reported back to Martin, who doused the plants in a bath of pesticide (so much for organic farming). The vines coughed, gasped, and doubled over.

But this year the plants are invigorated. They're black-rot free and we've got a bumper crop of grapes. Which begs the question: what do we do with all this fruit?

Google "grape recipes" and you'll find chicken-grape salad; pork chops in grape sauce; filet of sole with grapes (really, grapes with fish?)...But these recipes call for 1 cup of grapes. I need a recipe that uses them by the pound.

And that's when it dawned on me: Grape jelly. It's a no brainer. I'd make shelves of it and give it away at Christmas. Just like Martha Stewart!

Back to google I went, where I found "how to make grape jelly in 12 easy steps!" In addition to fruit, all I needed was a jar funnel, a jar grabber, a jelly strainer, a canner, a food processor, some pectin, and a dozen jars, rings and lids.

And $75 and six hours later I'd have 12 jars of homemade grape jelly, which would get shoved into the furthest reaches of our friends' cupboards.

That's assuming I properly sterilized my canning supplies. Otherwise, it'd be: "Merry Christmas, have a jar of home-grown botulism."

So I'm going to spare myself the trouble and disease and ditch my canning plans. Instead, we'll eat what we can and give the rest to unsuspecting friends and neighbors. And next year we'll cut back the vine. Or bring back the black rot.