Dear Readers - Letters From the Country

Last year the swallows built a nest in the corner of the carport where we were all living. By "all" I mean Justin, Ellen, Elijah, Wright, Christian, Zachariah, Mercy, Susan, & Franklin. In about 1700 square feet.

But back to the swallows. A swallow would swoop in under the carport up to the nest. I believe the little birds (Swallowlings? Swallowettes?) could hear their parents flying in because they set up such a ruckus to be fed. In due wonderment we watched those swallows most of the summer.

Now they’re back, although not to exactly the same nest in the same corner. Another pair has staked that one out. The others had to build a new nest. As the couple builds, they chitter-chatter and gossip to each other. They look like they are dressed in tails. The male wears an orange shirt front, the female white with an orange throat – elegant birds.

TULIP POPLARS BLOOM

The circle of our driveway is lined with tulip poplars, and I have been eagerly waiting for them to bloom. These are not "tulip trees." Their bloom begins with pale green petals that quickly turn to ivory. Around the inside of the bloom is a wide orange stripe. At the center the pistil is an elongated yellow cone, surrounded by a multitude of yellow stamens. The tulip blossom smells faintly like cake baking, and when they bloom the whole tree comes alive.

Last night came a terrible storm. Reading in bed before I went to sleep, at one point I thought a tornado was blowing up. (Three years ago one laid waste a huge swath not a mile from our cabin.) Yesterday was fairly hot, about 85, but this morning was about 60. The sky is full of fluffy white clouds and the sky is intensely blue. The air is filled with a sweet but sharp smell, too tart for honeysuckle but almost too sweet for roses. Clover? This is the kind of day you’d wait fifty years for, just to live through one time.

MOWER TROUBLES

The weather has been perfect for grass, so the cattle are grazing up to their shoulders in it. Farmers are starting to bale the first cutting of hay, which leaves me anxious. Why? Well, Justin bought an International Harvester New Ideal horsedrawn mower. I don’t know how old it is, but it works like a charm. That is, it did work, until I got hold of it.

Justin hooked Jachin & Boaz up to it the first time, and although it sounds like somebody beating handfuls of tin cans together, they settled down and pulled like champs. I couldn’t resist asking Justin to let me take them a round. The first one was fine, but on the second the mower lost the bolts that hold on the driving arm, the one that transfers force from the gear box to the blade.

From Justin’s place it’s a half hour drive to town, so you don’t just run in to pick up a bolt. It took several days and an energetic argument about what size bolt actually fit the hole, but I finally rounded up bolts and got them replaced. Justin hitched up the team again, and the mower was working just fine.

Once again, I couldn’t resist, but my pride caught up with me. I wanted to cut just as close as I could get to the fence. I caught a fence post with the tip end of the mower blade.

Now at this point put your high school physics to work. The mower is shaped like an "L", with the mower tongue as the upright part of the L and the blade as the horizontal stroke. A force of almost 4,000 pounds of horsemeat relentlessly impels the tongue forward. Suddenly, at a right angle the blade catches on the fence post and stops. The horses don’t. This pivots the mower clockwise, and all the force is exerted on the tongue where it connects to the mower. At which point, you’d better have a stout tongue.

We didn’t. Somebody had replaced the original tongue with (I soon discovered) a cedar pole. Cedar, as compared to white or red oak, has approximately the same tensile strength as wet toilet paper or dry egg yolk. The tongue cracked at the joint.

Now we have a real mess, fixable only in two parts. First, remove the remains of the tongue from the mower. Second, take the tongue to the Amish to have a replacement made. Before we ever started I could have predicted that it was an all day job. Taking out the seven bolts took us about three hours, including the time to hacksaw one in two, and the time spent looking for tools. Finally we took it to the same Amish shop where we had bought our wagon. We asked how much a new white oak tongue would cost.

"We get $20 for a wagon tongue," he told us. Fine, I said, this one is a little different. As long as it doesn’t cost over thirty, that will be fine.

We got into the car and drove away. Justin turned to me and said, "Do you feel like you just cheated somebody?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I know what you mean, but he named his own price."

CHICKEN CATHEDRAL

For one reason or another the projected chicken coop has not been built for the last year (note passive voice, which obscures the actor). Susan got out here old Country Living magazine for plans for a mobile chicken house and, with the help of several boys, started building.

When I finally got up nerve enough to walk out to the barn, I was astonished. What she had built was not a chicken coop, but a chicken cathedral. She has painted the whole thing, and plans to paid a sign on the back, "Home of the Dixie Chicks." The "X" will be, of course, a Confederate flag.

Last Monday we went down to the flea market at Ardmore, Tennessee/Alabama. I had called the Chicken Man of Decatur, who sells exotic chickens at all the flea markets, and arranged for him to bring some German Morans (5 hens and 2 roosters, in case one of them had a weak heart) and a black-green East Indian drake to replace the one the varmints/dogs got, the mate for my little hen. Susan also had to buy six guineas, to keep the ticks out of the yard, and Zach bought three Khaki Campbell ducklings.

Bonnie, our favorite Highland Cow, had her calf finally, a little bull. He is as gentle as she is, but chocolate brown where she is white. Here’s a picture of Zach, Bonnie, and as-yet-unnamed bull calf.

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