Good days and bad days; roach trip down the river

By Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker

Today was lightly cloudy with a bit of breeze from the northwest. It makes the day livable as the thermometer rises. Two days ago we had the prettiest day of the summer, so far. The birds started singing as soon as there was enough light to see. It is always easy to wake up to that and the early morning sun filtering through the trees. Since we had so much rain in June everything is green and the creek is running and full of tadpoles. Throughout the day there were no clouds and the trees and grass glowed in the strong light. The red Barn stood out sharply against its green background. The scissortail flycatchers flew in and out of the hackberry on the east side of the Barn. The chickens ran up and down their ladder singing about eggs. These were the only sounds; even though it was a weekday, there were no motors within earshot. Evening cooled the air and lowered the intensity of light. As it darkened there was a pretty peach pink west sky.

Next following hard upon such a fine day, the air was filled with the joys of large city pollution. The air was filled morning to evening with a dirty brown haze. I got the hose out and sprayed all the plants with a hard jet of water. This gets the pollution off so that the plants can breathe. Three years ago the mustang grape vine covering the fence near the east yard gate almost died from the bad air. The leaves shriveled and turned brown. The whole plant appeared to die, but later I discovered that hosing off the leaves saves them. This is, of course, all new in my life. Pollution this bad 30 miles from a city is indicative of what is wrong in Texas . All the power plants that got grandfathered by the former governor are spewing junk into the air to mix with the stuff coming from the growing number of vehicles on the roads (most with one person in them). The air is awful but all the news reports say everything is just fine. Funny, I just don't recall brown air out here at the Ranch when we were growing up. Did I miss something?

We are “raising” a small crop of feral hogs again. There are four of them, three piglets and their mother. I can almost see them growing daily thanks to regular feeding. First they visit the hunters' feeder for corn which is automatically delivered at five p.m. Then, as the cattle drift up for water and an evening handout, they join them for another meal; perhaps it's their dessert. Little squeals and snorts tell me they are wandering in and out of the herd but a swoosh of horn says they got too close to someone's cow cake. The hunters and I are busy conferring over the piglets' growth and speculating about when harvest time will arrive. For now I can enjoy their lives and activities. Several times this week I have run into the turkey flock, some 13 or 14 strong. There are three hens with their half-grown young and they turn up at the Barn for water. Now I am scattering handfuls of grain for them, much to the guineas' delight. Even Sissy's horse, Langtry, tries to whuffel up the grain. Since he has just finished his supper he doesn't get much because I make sure I toss it very far and wide.

In the distance I hear the ancient lion at Primarily Primates roaring. He greets the cooling evening as the sun goes behind the hills.

Bebe Fenstermaker

Bebe and I were having lunch the other day and heard about the “float trip from hell.” It could also be called the “roach trip from hell.” Friends of ours, Dan and Debbie, gave a party celebrating their son's graduation from high school. Family members from near and far came into town for the event. Now, Dan loves to kayak and so does his brother-in-law, Randy, who lives in San Diego , California . On the Sunday following the graduation, they loaded a couple of Dan's kayaks and head out to where highway 311 crosses Rebecca Creek Road, to put into the Guadalupe River at that point. The flow was good and the weather was great. They passed the first little patch of falls where Randy dumped over, executed a roll, and popped back to the surface. Dan was over by the bank watching and when Randy surfaced noticed a large cockroach on his helmet. It was of the large variety some call “water bugs.” Dan paddled over and slapped Randy on the head, knocking the roach into the water. The latter asked him, “What's that for?” at about the same time Dan saw another roach crawling up the front of Randy's life jacket and still another coming up his back. Dan decided they might be coming from the inside of his brother-in-law's kayak. Randy scrambled out and together they tipped the kayak to let water into the well then sloshed it around and poured out the contents. At least ten roaches spilled out into the river and floated away. “Eeeuuu,” observed Dan. “That could have been real bad.” Those bugs could have gone up Randy's shorts! Let me pause here and enlighten you readers. According to Randy, roaches don't grow in San Diego! HA!!

The kayakers got back in and continued downstream. Two more roaches came out after that and another one further down. Randy got out again and sloshed more water around on the inside, emptying out two or three bugs. The “float trip” went on and by the end of it, one more roach was seen climbing up his shirt. The next day those stalwart kayakers were again in the water. And wouldn't you know it, Randy had a roach crawl up his life vest!

I have long realized that roaches will probably inherit this remarkable planet. That being the case, why do you suppose some scientists would go out of their way to give those insects a leg up? I just recently heard that a group of scientists nuked some roaches and discovered there was no chemical in their arsenal that would kill them. The solution was to put those nuked bugs in a sack and bury them near the little town where all this happened. The scientists did not tell anyone what they had done. Suddenly all around town there were reports of roaches that wouldn't die. Finally forced to reveal what they had done, the scientist also had to admit that the only way to kill those roaches was to squash them.

Sissy Fenstermaker