No Matter What
Part 15
I just spent the last 15 minutes looking up how to remove a tick from your animal, grabbing the tweezers and alcohol wipes and pulling the goddam thing out of Kitten’s neck. I don’t think I got the head, but I do know the body went straight into the fire. The thing is, my cat is an indoor cat, except for the times he comes out the back door and gingerly pokes his head into the grass to take a few nibbles.
He’s been very pushily wanting attention the last couple of days, and I feel badly now, that I’ve been pushing him away. The poor boy was telling me about the tick that was busy burrowing its way into his skin.
I don’t know if you’re squeamish. I’m not particularly. Spiders are fine outside, but inside, there is a limit to what I will allow. I know I live comfortably amidst a large extended family of daddy long leg spiders in this big, old house, and they are well enough hidden that I don’t think about them. I know there is a little black spider that wanders around the house, but he is smart enough to stay small and the hell out of my bedroom. I’ve dealt with the smaller city cockroaches, which disgust me, and the bigger, outdoor cousins in Arizona that are large enough you can hear them walking, their little legs like tiny sticks clacking on the stones. The spiders there were either super poisonous, like the nest of black widows under our living room window, or the brown recluse which gives nasty necrotic bites, and is the reason you don’t put an ungloved hand anywhere you can’t see what it’s touching. The tarantulas were sweet. Like hairy little monsters, driven out from underground by the monsoon rains. It is not uncommon to see them on your front doorstep, or walking with a purpose down the street. You can pick them up and pet them even. I have not. That goes beyond my comfort zone. I appreciate their fuzzy, more animal-like-than-insect-like appearance, but that’s as far as I go.
There were times in Arizona when a very large, scary looking bug would come in the house and I would catch it under a jar, but not quite know how to dispose of it otherwise. More than once, my then husband would come home to three or more jars, upside down over very large, scary looking bugs, scattered about the house. I hear the bugs in Australia are huge and mostly deadly. I’d love to go there, but that gives me reason to hesitate.
I knew the ticks were supposed to be bad here on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. And they are living up to that reputation. I have a routine now, where I come inside after being outside, working on my property. I come in the back porch. I strip off all my clothes and do a quick inside and outside tick check. Then I check myself all over. Then I put on my tick-free indoor clothes. And to this date, there is always at least one tick on my clothes or on me. My skin is constantly crawling with the sensation the there is something on me. The other day, I felt something on my leg when I was outside, wearing my overalls, tucked into my rubber boots, a long-sleeved shirt and a wide-brimmed hat, with my hair down and yet still, somehow, a tick had gotten onto my completely covered skin. I ran inside and stripped down to my underwear. I checked my overalls, inside and out. I checked myself. Nothing. So I put them back on, thinking I just had the willies. As I worked, I couldn’t get rid of the sensation that there was something in my crotch area. So I ran back inside and did a thorough check. There was nothing. Bending down to put my underthings back on, I noticed in the crotch of my panties, a goddam, disgusting fucking tick. Wahh! My friend Sylvia told me that someone she knows had to go to emergency to have a tick removed from his butt crack. Eeeg! My neighbour told me the other day that he is more afraid of dying from a tick bite than from Covid. I have to agree.
I need to mix up a good tick repellant. I have discovered that peppermint oil, mixed with water and a touch of dish soap took care of the hornets that were gathering at the window on the inside of my little barn. I’m sure they have just relocated somewhere else equally inconvenient.
It is the dry summers for the last four years here that have increased the tick population. It used to be earwigs that were the nuisance. They liked the moisture, but now that it has not been moist… I’m hoping we get rain. The weather app on my phone calls for it and nothing comes. We had a couple of sprinkles today, but not near enough. I have checked my well water level and already it is going down from its fullest back in March. And here I am putting in gardens. Gardens that I won’t be able to water. I am determined to grow things.
Spring is so here and the sun calls me outside. I cannot be inside when the weather is warming like it is. A sweater for the wind, a jacket at the beach, but short sleeves and even shorts in the hottest part of the day while working. It’s still too cold for the veggies to go out despite this being the long weekend. What does that even mean anymore? We’ve been in lockdown, social distancing mode for so long now. Working remotely if working at all. What does one do with a “long weekend” that is not like all the rest of the weekends for the last year and a half?
Regardless, I will be outside. I have dug 4 of the 18 post holes I need for my deer fence, for which I still need to procure wood. I’m hoping to go tomorrow with Shaun, a scallop fisherman/neighbour who told me he’d take me to a mill nearby in the hope that the lumber there might be a little more affordable. Three sides of the fence will be close enough to structures and bushes and trees, to be not easily jumped over by deer. The front side however, offers an opportunity for the deer to work their way up to a running leap as they come through the field across the road, straight over the fence. To deter them, I am making a banner of white flags to hang between the two end posts. Flapping in the ever-present wind, I am hoping it will mess a bit with their depth perception and they won’t take the risk, despite the smell of all the goodies on the other side of that chicken wire.
My living room and studio windows are full of seedlings that are going out now every day and coming in every night. I have more of everything than I can even give to my neighbours, so I have posted my plants for sale. People responded and the most popular item turned out to be delphiniums. It was so nice meeting more folks in the area. Today was a day of delivering plants to neighbours, giving gardening advice. Sharing my knowledge about the thing I love most in the world, which is growing things.
You know, I wake up every morning and cannot believe how lucky I am to live such a beautiful area, in a friendly community that has welcomed me as though I’ve always been here. I am truly fortunate.
The other morning I woke up and did not feel so fortunate. I had tossed and turned through the night, sore muscles and tired joints waking me and forcing me to change positions frequently. I’ve been hard at it outside, raising the level of the grade around the house, moving gravel, moving dirt, making beds at the front of the house, digging post holes. That morning my right arm was so tired I could not lift it. And I hadn’t even started the day yet. I decided to rest it and work on something less strenuous inside. Give it a day off. By early afternoon, the sun had moved from the kitchen to the dining room and studio, to the front of the house where it warms everything and feels almost tropical. So warm that it drew me outside, where I thought I would just take a look-see at the current progress of everything.
I found myself pulling the quack-grass out of the area closest to the back porch. I don’t currently have a working lawnmower and I have not had a chance to get over to Frank who told me’d fix me up with something. I’d like to put a patio area out there. A tick-free zone, where you could sit and have coffee in the morning, or sit with a neighbour and chat. I laid a few stones just to get a feel for how it would look and what would be required. I have a plan, I tell you. I started to raise the grade around the house and put gravel in as I don’t have eavestroughs, and the area around the house has sunk because the water runs straight off the roof beside the foundation. I have about half of the house done so far. I moved the laundry line from the back porch to the side of the house between the the barn and the pantry side. I’d like to put a door from the pantry to outside as it will make collecting eggs from the chickens so much easier. Of course, I don’t have chickens yet, so this is not an issue for the time being.
This summer, I will get the storm windows off of downstairs and reglaze and seal around the old wood double-hung windows, and give them a paint job. There are twenty windows to work on downstairs. Eight more upstairs.
The black flies and mosquitoes have started to emerge. I was giving plants to a gentleman for his wife and as we spoke, I saw his head was encircled by flying things. They came to me as I walked through the field and into the wooded area in front of my house. I am so drawn to that area. It is the most beautiful view from my front windows, and so inviting to walk into and disappear. I want that view to never change except with the seasons. In the fall the larches were bright yellow well into November. Now, in the spring, the colours are deep yellow green, rusty purple reds and golden oranges. Now, there are trees blooming, a beautiful fragrant apple blossoms on the tree at the edge of the woods. I stood for a couple of minutes, a branch pulled to my nose, breathing in the sweetness (and probably the pollen) until the mosquitoes found me and forced me to move on. I wonder if this is why I have no allergies. There is a picture of me at a year old and my face is buried in a rose. My daughter says I might as well stick them right up my nose, I breathe flowers in so deeply.
I want so much to plant, but until that deer fence goes up, there will be no planting anything. I will have that fence up before the end of May, no matter what.
Notes from the Edge of the World 