Weekly Update: 8.5.23
There is a passage in Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird that describes the soggy-hot of a southern summer day.
Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird", 6.
Of course, the Ozarks barely classify as "the south," but Lee's passage has come often to my mind this week as I've showered. Then showered. Then showered again. I feel like a soft teacake by nightfall myself, only instead of sweet talcum, my frosting is made of sunscreen and dust.
I have always prided myself on being very heat-tolerant, but this summer has changed me. I realized that I, too, have my limits. On several days this week, once the work was done, I found myself flopped in my hammock in the shade, just trying not to move.
Thank God (and I mean that quite seriously) that summer doesn't last all year. The dog days are nearly over. Higher temps will likely return, but I know we can survive it, as cooler ones are on the way not too far behind. And by cooler -- I mean temps in the 80s. I've lived in the Ozarks long enough to have no delusions about autumn.
The high temps brought some severe weather this week, which slowed us down a bit. We had a bad storm late Sunday night, which promised winds above 60 miles-per-hour. We took to our storm shelter, though it was so hot in there some of us wondered if we wouldn't rather face the storm in the tent. The sun beats down on that concrete during the day, and it becomes a veritable oven at night. The storm ended up sounding terrible, though, so we were thankful despite the heat. The wind sounded so bad -- with our NOAA radio repeating that this was a "dangerous situation" repeatedly -- we didn't know what we would find when we got out. When the storm had calmed down enough to go back to the tent, though, things looked fine from what we could see in the dark. There was just a lot of water and mud.
It continued to storm for most of the night. On Monday morning, we found our footing holes too messy to pour in. Several had filled part way up with mud or collapsed inside. We spent the day trying to get things back to normal -- as much as we could with the mud.
For the rest of the week, we kept up a good pace as we worked as hard as we could in the mornings before it became to hot to work. We finished our last footing on Friday. The final pours took us a lot longer than the first ones, as they required a lot more concrete -- and mixing by hand is slow. We finished at last, though, and that felt great. Levi and Grace get the award of most concrete mixed, though we all helped at different times during the process.
While we were working one day, we heard a chirping sound and found two baby birds. The county had just mowed along the road, so we wonder if their nest was disturbed. One was standing in the build site while another was running across the ground toward its sibling. We tried to catch them, and they flew a bit -- one onto our porch where it continued to chirp, and the other into the swimming pool (Bonnie-Jean saved it). A few minutes later, we found a third baby bird wandering around nearby. We collected them and took them away from our camp (and dogs). They were so cute -- we hope they do all right. We'd love to know what kind of birds they were, but we haven't been able to figure it out.
It was so hot this week, we didn't do much aside from our bunkhouse project and the regular camp chores. Bonnie-Jean deep cleaned the storm shelter one day, and we took a few things stored down there to storage. We purchased a new screened canopy and set up a kitchen area closer to our office. We wanted to move our ice chests off of our porch, and we wanted a screened area for cooking. We also wanted to be closer to our power outlet for using appliances. We are hoping the new screen canopy holds up in the wind, but we will have to see. We set it up yesterday morning, in time to start a boiled ham dinner. It seems counter-intuitive to eat a slow cooker meal on a hot day, but the joy of not having to cook in the evening makes the soupy-hot meal worth it.
On Thursday, we took three of our dogs to the vet. Tilde had to have surgery to fix a small umbilical hernia. While she was in, Bonnie-Jean and Jeremiah decided to get both puppies microchipped. It was also time for their rabies vaccines and tick prevention. Both Tilde and Dagger did great -- they were personable and, thankfully, didn't pester the cats that live at the veterinary clinic.
I took Dolly in with us to talk to a vet tech for advice. She got into some dry concrete last week and ended up with a little chemical burn on her nose. We don't know where she even found it -- likely mouse hunting around the concrete pallets. I tried treating the burn with Hibiclens soap and coconut oil, but it wasn't improving like we wanted it to. The vet gave us some ointment, and her nose started looking better the next day. That's what I love about our little country veterinary clinic. They are affordable, no-fuss, and always ready to help you treat your own animal if possible.
When we got home from the vet, we found a truck full of people parked at our gate, cinnamon rolls in hand, just wanting to say hello. I can't get over what a blessing it is living in an area where people actually want to know their neighbors. When our grandma passed this spring, a neighbor brought us some bread. After another neighbor's cows got onto our property, that neighbor brought us some muffins. I'm not used to living around such sweet people. We did our best to choose a nice area to live in, but there are some things that are always a surprise. The sweet people in our area have been such nice surprise. I look forward to getting to know them all better and truly becoming a part of this community.
I'm glad we got so much done, but I'm thankful this hot week is over. I'm looking ahead, to the cooler temps and rain on the horizon. I'm also looking forward to starting work on our piers. As with everything on this project, I imagine there will be quite a learning curve, but I think we are ready for it. God has been with us so far, even when things have been far from easy, and I know he will go forward with us -- even with something as simple as learning (or re-learning) a new skill.
