rural life

Fish Story

Our pond.

Imagine a pond. Clear and blue, or blue-ish. A calm, wide spot in a creek that carries fresh snow melt straight from the mountain’s peak over smooth, oval rocks, splashing a soothing background soundtrack. A pond surrounded by cattails and reeds that nod in a whispering breeze. This is not like our pond at all.

Our pond is murky at best, usually brackish. At its worst, at the tail-end of a fiery summer of drought, it is merely a muddy swamp festering at the bottom of a shallow depression. It is not fed by an upbeat little brook or a mysterious underground aquifer. It’s just a collection site for rainwater when the surrounding dirt has had all it can absorb.

Some mature post oak trees near the shore help beautify the setting somewhat. Counteracting the gentrification efforts of the oaks are two spindly bush-like trees growing in the pond, near the middle. They are easily more than half-submerged when the pond is full. The horrid snakes who frequent the area swim out and twine their way up the branches to bake in the sun–until they are sighted and shot at. This prompts the snakes to drop back in the water, poking their heads out after a minute to enjoy a laugh at the shooter’s expense.

See the blob in the branches? That’s a snake.

Humans in their right minds are not tempted to dip even a toe into the pond, but many others besides the snakes enjoy swimming there–turtles, surface-skimming water bugs, tadpoles and their cooler older brothers, the frogs. Mosquito larvae also wriggle their childhoods away in the water, and this is why a friend suggested we add some goldfish from the bait shop to the pond. You know–to eat the larval skeeters.

Living in our little pond would be scummy, but it would have to be better than a career spent as a bait fish. And so, one April Saturday, we bought a dozen goldfish from the minnow tank at the OneStop, a local convenience store and dine-in restaurant. They were released into the pond, and the next day I saw only three of them. As days passed, I saw none at all, and figured that the turtles snapped them all up for snacks. I hated the fact that twelve fish had paid with their lives for my stupidity, and promised myself that we would never stock the pond again.

A pond resident looking suspiciously well-fed.

In early June, a visiting offspring swore he saw a flash of goldfish gold in the pond, and a week or two later, I spotted a few flashes myself. My best guess was that we had been able to retain between four and six fish after all–still a 50% casualty rate, but not the total massacre I had feared. By July, their survival was official; approximately twenty goldfish were swimming about. They were most often spotted in the middle of the pond, in two small schools. I hoped they were learning to eat mosquito larvae and to avoid the heron that had started to frequent the banks of their watery campus.

Summer wore on with sweltering days and no rain. The pond’s water level dropped quickly until it was within a couple of weeks of drying up entirely. I was unable to embrace a “live and let die” policy as far as the goldfish were concerned, and I spent odd moments hatching plans to capture whatever fish were left and then transfer them to a more reliably liquid environment. Thankfully, autumn rains fell before the pond dried out completely, but the fish had vanished. Sigh. I didn’t go up by the pond much because it was just a sad reminder of our failed fish experiment. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway, however.

Since our lives were just too carefree and uncomplicated, we adopted a dog in January. On one of our very first walks, I was surprised and delighted to see four orange circles in the pond–four separate little gatherings of goldfish! There were easily one hundred fish milling about. Talk about making a comeback! Of course, the heron came back, too, as well as the fishing feral cats, but still!

We imagined the fishy come-ons that were floated during the last few days of that summer drought:

“There’s a water shortage, time is getting late. I’m feeling kinda frisky– girlfriend, let’s don’t wait!”

“You and me, baby. There’s still water. Let’s make (fertilized) eggs!”

“We’ll probably all die anyway. Why not go out with a bang?”

Obviously, there’s a great lesson here about not giving up. About persisting despite overwhelming odds. About stocking up on eggs, because hey, you never know. For me, though, I think the takeaway is that I have no business having farm animals of any kind.

One of the elusive goldfish.

First Fire

“We don’t need more lighter fluid after all.”

We inherited a burn pile a year and a half ago.

It came fully mature; already ensconced on the property we purchased–no extra charge. It was every bit of four feet tall and eight feet around.

Made up almost entirely of broken oak branches and deceased leaves, it had been left to its own devices for quite a while. It was drier than a Bob Newhart monologue and already big enough to make it worth your while to set it on fire.

As the days passed, it continued to grow because we continued to feed it–endless ropes of thorny briar vines, whole mesquite trees, assorted weeds and more broken tree limbs. “Just throw it on the burn pile!” became the default answer to most disposal questions.

Weekend after weekend passed without burning this expanding heap. Sometimes there was a burn ban in effect. Sometimes it was raining. Days that were too windy also meant the brush pile would survive for another day.

At last, the spirit of Goldilocks descended, and the perfect Saturday to burn arrived. A permit was obtained and one of the offspring was enlisted to help. Three straw brooms were purchased and pails of water were set around the fire pit. There were also three fire extinguishers and a couple of shovels, just in case.

At this point, the burn pile was huge. It was easily 12 feet high and 20 feet in diameter. I believe it was no longer “burn pile” size. No, it was definitely in the “bonfire” category.

A celebratory sprinkling of lighter fluid was dispensed, and at long last, the fire was lit.

Not much happened at first.

I had enough time to say, “We may need more lighter fluid….” And then–whoosh! My hair was sucked upwards and all that dead, dry wood ignited. Flames engulfed the whole heap seemingly at once and the satisfaction of accomplishment combined with the thrill of danger. Serious smoke was visible for miles, and an understandably concerned neighbor called the volunteer fire department.

You guessed it.

My husband, the offspring, and I were standing around admiring the inferno and joking about how we were having our own little Burning Man event when we heard distant sirens.

“Do you think those are for us?”

The sirens got closer, and sure enough, several fire trucks turned in our driveway. At first, we were mortified that we’d taken them away from any real potential emergencies, but all the firefighters couldn’t have been more gracious.

The chief said that they’d gotten the call reporting our fire, and he’d stepped out the door of the mess hall to the sight of flames leaping high above the trees–our fire was that visible, even to the firehouse three miles away. He decided the crew had better respond, so they all headed out.

By the time they got to us, the initial towering fiery vortex had died way down, and Butch took everyone to show them the house construction in progress and pass out water.

One of the firefighters told the offspring that he should come by the firehall sometime and see about helping out at the VFD. The offspring was flattered and delighted.

All in all, it was a great day.

But we’ll never let the burn pile get this big again.

Venomous.

Slicker to Hick Blog

Do not pet.

Surprise!
(image credit Egor Kamelev)

I heard about copperhead snakes for the first time when I was about ten years old. The babysitter I loved, Mrs. Prickett, would sometimes entertain me with stories from her past. One day, she shared the saga of her run-in with a copperhead. She had gone down to her basement to retrieve a box, and when she moved it–surprise! There was the snake. It was surprised too, and opened its jaws and spat five little baby snakes at Mrs. Prickett, one at a time, one right after the other. Mrs. P rocketed upstairs and promptly threw a hysterical fit.

I dare you to forget this story. I certainly didn’t! When I told this cautionary tale to my husband, Butch, he said he’d always heard that snakes hatch from eggs. I pointed out that Mrs. Prickett had never lied to me. Google was called in, and we found out that a copperhead gives birth to live young, but babies grow in eggs that remain inside the mother’s body. So win-win-win; everyone was right.

We also learned that a female copperhead can store sperm in a kind of uterine safety deposit box. She summons those sperm to active duty when she decides the time is right; sometimes years down the road. She can also give virgin birth, producing what are basically little snake clones. Ms. Copperhead is a strong, independent snake who doesn’t need a male. She can choose to become a mom whenever she has reached a point in her career when pregnancy wouldn’t be too inconvenient.

Want a snake? Get a woodpile.

All this new knowledge was not much more than wow-worthy until we bought our little untamed patch of Wise County, Texas. We moved in June. Summertime, and the living was snake-y. It seemed like Facebook was filled with stories about close encounters of the viper kind–in a flowerpot, a fireplace, a woodpile. . . . One of Butch’s high school friends posted that one had slithered under her refrigerator and would not come out. She asked for the wisdom of the group, and the general consensus was that her house would have to be burned to the ground.

The first crew to work on the building we were finishing (the property included a half-built house) discovered an 18-inch rat snake living in the kitchen sink cabinet. They didn’t kill it because a rat snake is harmless to humans, if you discount the moment of heart stoppage when you first see it. They said they’d guide it outside if they saw it again, which is not as reassuring as it first may sound. I comforted myself by remembering that rat snakes keep the rodent population down. After all, I hate mice and rats, and I was the unreasonable parent who wouldn’t let the classroom rat come home with my son over the weekend. (You may have read about that incident in Mean Mom Monthly.)

Several weeks passed. One Saturday I was out chopping briar vines by the road, and Butch was about 100 yards away, out of sight behind the house. I had just moved to a new tree and was pruning a few low branches when I looked down and saw a scaly cylinder patterned in shades of brown. I stepped (quickly!) back to the asphalt and shouted for Butch. No reply. I texted him–nothing. In desperation, I placed an actual voice call, but still no response. Was it a copperhead? I didn’t know, and didn’t want to leave the area and give it a chance to escape if it was. I took a picture, using the telephoto feature.

Zoom feature.

I sent the photo to two friends and asked, “Is this a copperhead?” Within a minute, one texted back in all caps, “VENOMOUS. DO NOT PET.”

I summoned all my lungpower from a lifetime of not smoking and yelled. This time, Butch heard me. About fifteen minutes and three gunshots later, the snake was no more. We hung the carcass on the barbed wire fence as a warning to others, not knowing that a snake hanging on a fence is supposed to bring rain.

And that, my friends, is how Wise County came to have one of the wettest Octobers on record.

The end of the road.

Thorns, thorns, thorns.

Slicker to Hick Blog

When plants attack.

In my pre-rural days, the only literal thorns in my life were on rose stems. Those were easily avoided and forgotten in the excitement of “Flowers! He’s really interested after all!” But now. . .we live in a real-life Game of Thorns and I’m hoping we are wily enough to outsmart the little prickers.

The property we bought had been neglected for years, and one of the first things you noticed from the cocoon of your car was that each of the many trees was surrounded by a puffy skirt of vines and brush. I knew there would have to be significant clearing done around each tree, but I didn’t realize how much I would come to hate the vines.

In all its glory.

First look: what’s to hate? Leaves in a thin, heart-ish shape, attractively mottled in green with the occasional sassy red accent. And the name itself–Smilax. Smiling, happy Smilax.

“Gloves? We laugh at gloves!”

Closer look: see all those thorns? Placed all around the stem at about half-inch intervals or closer? Making it impossible to touch the vine, even casually, without a scratch or puncture wound? It became clear to me that the only one smiling would be the smilax vine itself, smiling in a smug little sneer as it drew yet another bead of blood. Or smirking, as it managed to snag a favorite shirt.

Thorny Smilax vine. I’ve also heard it called briar vine. If its scientific name isn’t Smilax satanicus, it should be. The property is overrun with these specimens. Even the smallest, youngest vines are densely studded with tiny spikes of peril, and each of the hundred or so trees has at least twenty malevolent shoots springing from the ground around it.

So how to eradicate these clinging ropes that will choke the tree to death if left unchecked? The vines’ leaves and stems are very waxy and impervious to herbicide–except in amounts huge enough to kill all nearby trees. Fortunately, they are easily clipped with lopping shears, but then they must be gathered and hauled off. Is that easy? Of course not!

You must grip the Smilax tightly enough to yank it from the thousand arboreal nooks and crannies where it has insinuated itself, but not so tightly that thorns pierce your glove. Many of our vines have had years to snake their way high into their host tree and are at least ten feet long. The vines seem to take particular delight in snapping back to scrape your face as you coil them for their trip to the burn pile. Another favorite trick is to surreptitiously clip you on the back of the ankle, sending a shot of adrenaline to your nerves as your panicked brain screams, “SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE!”

The rootball of all evil.

And now, we come to the root of this problem plant. Think of a subway. The roots of the Smilax form a subterranean network that channels nourishment to the stems that emerge at regular intervals and tunnel their way up to the sun. At less frequent intervals along the path, there is a swelling in the root like a big underground hub. It may be the brain of the whole enterprise. In any case, it is a horrid, bulbous blob with long, tapering spikes sticking out of it. It looks like Satan’s sweet potato.

But enough negativity! As it happens, the Smilax needs lots of sun to survive, and lopping it to the ground each time the vine emerges makes it weaker and weaker until it finally gives up the ghost. And all those vines harvested so far fueled a smoking hot bonfire in late December.

Going out in a blaze of glory.

Slicker to hick.

Slicker to Hick Blog

MVV Awards

One thousand bucks bought it from a fabulous, feisty woman up the road. She gave me her business card, which read “Ranch Goddess.” She was selling because her husband had died and she just couldn’t keep up with all the chores 50-plus acres demand; not by herself. And the latest boyfriend hadn’t worked out, so she had decided at last to hire out all the land maintenance. She wouldn’t be needing the tractor anymore. Besides, she was going on a cruise in three weeks and needed gambling green.

LBT with CBD and ACD.

The ’76 Satoh Beaver tractor came home with us, along with a high-sided plastic trailer that hitches onto the back. This gem of a machine would turn heads if it ever went into town–partly because the Ranch Goddess painted it a light, bright blue. The Satoh is small, as tractors go, but powerful enough to have pulled a carelessly parked sedan from the mud. It also extracted multiple wooden posts set in concrete blobs from the ground where they were buried. Its main job recently has been to drag its trailer partner to the burn pile to dump countless loads of thorny briar vine. The Satoh is always referred to as “LBT.” (That’s Little Blue Tractor, for the acronym-impaired.)

Sharing Most Valuable Vehicle honors is a 1996 Mazda B4000 pickup truck that we call The Mule. It has hauled, hauled, and hauled–mainly furniture and all kinds of construction trash. It has the endearing quality of possessing an air conditioner that blows a refreshingly arctic blast. The fact that it’s street legal is another big plus. The Mule spent much of its early life in the city of the Red Sox and has the rust to prove it.

Note the dent that adds even more character.

It allowed itself to be fixed with a $3 bolt from Lowe’s when the stick shift came off in my husband’s hand. This little pickup is the toughest of cookies and you never have to worry about scratching the paint or cracking the windshield–these things have already been accomplished.

Join me in raising a cup of diesel to toast LBT and Mule, MVV’s of the year here at Wise Acres!