Dirty Laundry

The Latest News From Jackson Press –

Well, we’re into June already! Where’d May go? Oh, that’s right – I turned 40 in May … the memory’s already starting to go.

Jackson Acre plans for June include completing our drainage project. I’m very excited! This should be the final step to our complete domination of drainage problems in Jackson Acre! And this should fix the bloody persistent sump pump!

I knew it was time to proceed with Phase 2 when I noticed how little water was now draining into the sump pit, maybe a drop every minute or so. This means the water table at Jackson Acre has finally dropped below the level of the sump drain pipes. It was finally time to excavate!

So today we dug! Or I should say, today I dug! This obsession with poor drainage at Jackson Acre is my folly and I will not subject my family members to helping me in this cause.

After an hour of digging I found the other pipe in our yard. And then the hole promptly filled up with water from the pipe. But now we know where the other source of the water saturating Jackson Acre is. All we need to do now is reroute the new pipe to the old pipe and – voila, problem solved.

Or so we’ll hope. We won’t really know until November when the winter rains start back up. But I have hope, that thing which causes we humans to march onward in the face of superior adversarial numbers, boldly making our way to certain doom.

On the puppy news front, I must report that I slipped up in my duties and the house is no longer poo/pee free. I wasn’t watching Daisy the other day when she sniffed her way into the family room and tinkled on the carpet. I managed to catch her before she saturated the carpet, but now she wanders over to that same spot whenever she has to potty and tries to go there first.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about doing the same thing myself.

On a related note, Ginger’s taken to vomiting first thing in the morning, usually around 5:00 AM. You know, a perfect hour when no one in the house is awake or even conscious. And then, out of a dead sleep, you hear the “hornking” noise, that unmistakable sound of a dog (or maybe a cat) trying hard to regurgitate whatever it is they still have in their stomach. Probably to eat again.

The act of Hornking sounds something like this – “hornk, gork, hornk, gork, hornk” and then the beast lets loose with a wet gagging sound as something sloppy hits the floor.

Fortunately, as soon as my subconscious mind hears the first hornk and jolts me awake, I know I have another three or four hornks before the vomit erupts. So far that’s been enough time to grab Ginger and carry her over to the tile floor in the bathroom.

And then she hornks up a vile looking concoction, thinks about licking it up again, then she goes back to bed. Oh the joys of having two dogs!

Hornking my way through life!

Flower-Scented Vomit

Here’s The Latest News From Jackson Press!

So Saturday at Jackson Press was spent tooling around Jackson Acre on the official Jackson Press Lawn Tractor mulching leaves. Here’s why that sucked …

First, there are many silver maples on the properties surrounding Jackson Acre. While silver maples can be nice trees to look at, they are what my neighbor Gordon calls “dirty trees”. Silver maples have this annoying tendency to grow many leaves, all of which will eventually fall. And in a high wind they will shed broken branches like a dog shaking off bath-water. Lot’s of tree litter, hence the “dirty tree” moniker.

My neighbor to the west, Dave, has four or five mature silver maple trees. I also have four or five. Since Dave’s property is west of mine, and the prevailing winds blow from west to east, many, if not all, of his leaves end up in my yard. One upside of this easterly-blowing prevailing wind is that many, but rarely most and never all, of my leaves end up in the yard of my eastern neighbor, Gordon. So the lesson here is to make sure you live in the western-most yard, so all of your leaves blow into your easterly neighbor’s yard for them to clean up!

This year I decided to use the official Jackson Press Lawn Tractor to mulch the leaves, rather than waste my time actually raking the leaves. Besides the obvious physical reason against raking (laziness), past autumns have demonstrated that disposing of our leaves is no small task, as there are not that many places to stash huge piles of leaves on Jackson Acre and we’re not supposed to burn them. This is a very large dilemma my dirty trees leave me with.

So this year we’re just chopping everything up. So far it’s working well, although I suspect what’s really happening is that my leaves, chopped into smaller pieces, are easier to blow into Gordon’s yard.

Now when I cut the grass at Jackson Acre, I cut it in the highest gear my tractor has, which is fifth gear. That usually propels me along at about 7 MPH. Trust me, that is not as fast as it may sound. When mulching leaves, however, I have to slow down to third gear to insure the blades have time to properly chop things up into small pieces. Third gear zips us along at about 3 MPH. Trust me, that is as slow as it sounds. Painfully slow, in fact, when you’re used to flying along at 7 MPH.

So Saturday found Gordon and I mulching. I donned a surgical mask, since I’m allergic to leaves, and this reminded me of all the Asians who wore surgical masks as they tried not to catch SARS. I’m sure Gordon thinks I’m crazy, but I consider wearing the surgical mask as practice for the upcoming bird flu.

As I trundled through my yard I noticed Gordon had at least twice as many leaves as me, thus supporting my “live to the west” theory. Surprisingly enough, Gordon was still done mulching long before me and with very little leaf litter residue. This is further proof that my tractor is frighteningly slow and that I should demand a new tractor for Jackson Press from my boss.

The only problem is that I’d rather waste my money on a new motorcycle. I can enjoy a new motorcycle – I would not enjoy a new tractor. Besides, the boss would just say “No”. Or – more likely – she would say “Yes” but I would have to buy her a diamond ring before I could buy either the tractor or motorcycle. You’re laughing at this notion, but there is precedence to this – it happened in 2001, when I bought my third motorcycle. That bike’s long gone, but the wife still has the ring. I’m not sure what that says about me …

One downside to mulching our leaves is that we don’t have any big leaf piles for the kids to jump into. That’s actually the only time my kids willingly rake leaves without being forced or cajoled. They rake up huge piles of leaves that they then spend hours playing in. Then the piles sit there for weeks at a time, killing the grass underneath and turning so moldy that I can’t get within ten feet of the pile without sneezing my britches off.

Yeah, mulching’s a much better idea.

The latest Civil Servitude is available for your reading enjoyment. The Giant Beaver adventure continues and we learn a little more about Miller’s sordid past. Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Trundling thru life in second gear …

(c) 2007 C.L. Jackson