Life in West Virginia: FALSE ALARM . . . IT WASN'T LIMESTONE

Thursday, July 13, 2006

FALSE ALARM . . . IT WASN'T LIMESTONE

The objects that I saw lying amidst the tall grass over home were busted up concrete, not limestone. So, I still am on the lookout for my limestone. As if that isn't depressing enough, we had two storms yesterday. No lightning or hail or even high winds. The first one around 3PM was a downpour. It rained buckets and buckets and there was an inch of water running through the General Store parking lot, as I happened to be there for a Diet Coke fix minutes after it started. I left from there and went to my house to see if the "renters" (LMAO) had started moving things as she had indicated the previous day. There was no one there and stuff still on the porch, so I picked up some trash, with Pun'kin content in her carseat close by I weeded some and checked the status of the various annuals that I have planted, Grandma's rose bush (hanging in there, barely), the hanging baskets on the "gazebo" (what Dad called it . . . it is a shelter built on the old cellar . . . it used to be the "smokehouse"), found some Forsythia growing from where Grandma's had to finally be cut out, it was almost dead, found Grandma's Hosta plant coming up in the middle of the yard, marked it with a piece of limestone I stole from Mom's house, noted some things that will need attention when they move and came back to Mom's.

Around 5 or so, we got a little rain, a little wind . . . not much of which to speak. Not close to the 70mph winds that we can sometimes frequently experience in the summer during the storm season as we are located atop a ridge. My plants at my house, needed water. I know, it had downpoured earlier but the way the wind blows the rain, even in buckets, the plants next to the front porch were dry as a bone and the hanging baskets on the "gazebo" also needed water. So, after fixing Mom and I something to eat (had to wait on her to get home from work with the green peppers) I loaded a few things, lattice for the front flower bed, some fertilizer and my little watering bucket, a hummingbird feeder freshly cleaned and filled with sugar water and took off on the 4-wheeler to my house. I went over to the left side of the house to fill my bucket and mix my fertilizer, watered the things out front then repeated the process and as I stood fertilizing Grandma's original Hosta (where her porch corner had been but the middle of my yard and well, it got mowed several times this spring) and I glanced up at the back deck (gazebo) and was shocked at the view. My Grandma's maple tree was split in half. No burn marks (indicating lightning) and no decay. Nice, fresh, torn, split Maple. When I went to water the baskets on the gazebo, I could reach out and grab HANDFULS of the seeds, (you know, the little whirly-bird thingamajigs) leaves and limbs. When I watered the basket on the right side of the 'zebo, my nose was in leaves. So I KNOW it happened in the second storm. But it wasn't even a storm. It was just rain and a little wind. That tree has stood up to winds 5 times the strength of the wind yesterday. I am afraid the whole tree may have to go but I hope to God it doesn't. I couldn't get a good look at it from the deck because of all the limbs. But that is literally the WHOLE SHADE for that side of the house. With no a/c and no tree, evenings are going to be miserable. I have the Mimosa on the other side and I have a Mimosa growing behind the house but it will be YEARS before it provides shade. Grandma's chestnut tree is not doing well either which also blocks some evening sun on the left side but I don't know how much longer it has.

I was filled with joy and hope and high expectations about finally starting the move home only to have those joys, hopes and expectations crushed. As if I haven't had my own run of bad luck recently even while doing good deeds for others. (please read this link to a previous post so you may understand my heartbreak) So, I will ask once again . . . when will it be MY turn for the good events to come along?? Come on, just one big break or a few small ones, please God. I TRY SO HARD to do right and it is SO hard for me sometimes to do right! If you added up all the small GOOD things that I have done and do and put them next to the BAD, the good pile has to be at least 30 feet higher than the bad, overall.

And now, as I am typing, the U-Haul went out the road to my house for the "tenants" to move their things. I am thinking Hallelujah! Then, it comes back out the road minutes later, leaving empty. It's not as if the U-Haul was for anyone else . . . there are only 3 houses out the road, including mine, and Curfmans' and Adams' are not moving. Trust me. Curfmans have lived there my whole life and Mr. C. has lived his entire life on that farm. I would know if they were moving. Adams is a newcomer but he and his wife aren't moving either. OMG, there the U-Haul goes back. Hallelujah! Okay, maybe things are looking up . . . .