Camp Run-A-Muck

I was doing a newsletter to my family in friends when I first moved into my cabin & the following is one of them that most got a laugh out of.

Well it's been an interesting week here at the Shady Rest version of Camp-Run-A-Muck. The weather was exciting....pouring down rain which collapsed one of the steel ceiling panels in the lower carport...dumping about 30 pounds of dead leaves, rust, slime & Lord knows what all over the carport floor & up the walls. Fortunately I was standing right INSIDE the doors as it happened instead of outside under that panel where I usually hang out to smoke a cigarette. I'll be calling someone this week to see about having the dangling participant & the rest of his leaking friends removed before any further mutiny can occur. Since the deck needs replacing anyway before it joins the rest of the "revolt of 2005" I'll be checking on that price at the same time......figuring that will be a sizable dent in the "I'm not going back to work until after winter" fund!

Every morning for the last week I've woken to temps in the low 20's & been treated to frost covering everything & any container holding water was at the least frozen over....plant containers, pet water bowls, rain barrel, any gutters that hadn't drained all the way. I found out very quickly about how slippery wood can be when it's got ice on it! (note to self: it is NOT really necessary to walk across the deck to straighten the flag at that hour of the morning!) The panic prone weather people are predicting the possiblity of snow flurries this coming week....we shall see.

On Friday afternoon-ish I finally drug my lazy tush down the hill to the mailbox to retreive the morning paper & get the mail...heard a rustle in the leaves to my right & looked up to see a beautiful buck strolling along the hill! I froze & he calmly jumped the practically invisible fence onto my property, pranced around the yard, investigated pretty much the entire place & exited out the hill behind the house...headed towards town & perhaps a late lunch date with Bambi's younger sister. So I've now had my first official live deer on my property sighting & I guess I'll see if there is someplace around town to buy a salt lick to encourage his return during the winter. Still no sign of anything else except birds & squirrels....haven't seen the fox again either.

I hitched the little trailer to my car yesterday morning & went to Sparta to pick up the dresser I'd bagged last week at Froggy Donna's "I'm getting new stuff, see anything ya want before I donate it??" indoor yard sale. Had some moments of anxiety over anybody who was getting ready to turn behind me as I passed...terrified they wouldn't see the trailer and run into it by turning too soon.

Now for the fun parts...before I even left the old homestead I stopped for the mail at the bottom of the hill....good thing 'cause that's when I realized I'd fogotten to toss the hand truck on the trailer...so it was trudge back up on foot & wheel it down, then try to tie it into the trailer since there's no back gate to keep it from flying out. It had been soooo long since I used the tie downs from the canoe that for the life of me I couldn't remember how to use the tensioners....in fairness to moi...it WAS a different approach than what I was used to....horizontal instead of vertical tension. Finally I just ended up tying knots & crossing my fingers. Got to Donna's in about 30 minutes & pulled onto her driveway & attempted to back the trailer STRAIGHT up to the garage for ease of loading but ended up on some kind of angle that was still ok. (pay attention here....this has further implications later!

Her son arrived from Ohio (he was picking up a dryer from that same "yard sale") and the 3 of us got the dresser on my trailer & he managed to work out the tensioner Chinese puzzle & get it, the hand truck & padding all lashed down nice & tight....Hurray, good to go! I hung out with them for a while, chatting & helping him load the dryer & put up her storm doors. Her son mentioned how tricky it was trying to back up those little trailers.....Then it was off for home before it got dark. Whizzing down the highway at the required, brisk 65 mph & I notice the pads covering my precious cargo seem to be flapping off to one side...stop the car...get out....yep it's come loose a bit, get that fixed & procede at a sedate 50-55mph to avoid the probability of it loosening again & wrapping itself around a trailer axle or some other disaster.

I arrive home & take notice that the "he" man is home at the bottom of the hill & wonder if I should stop & beg for help to unload the dresser, but decide if I take all the drawers out I should be able to handle it....so I continue on up & up & up the driveway....(obviously this is going somewhere!)...I pull straight into the upper carport & sure enough, I'm able to manage the dresser by myself....good for me!! After congratulating myself profusely for the accomplishment, I now decide to go out & back the trailer down the driveway & install it in the lower carport...it's usual happy home. Backing straight out of the carport & I'm looking to see when I need to start to turn the wheel to make the trailer curve around to the left & I hear a clunk!!! I look into the other side mirror & see the trailer is SIDEWAYS up against the ditch & has smacked the back of the car (no damage done) so I say "hmmmm" to myself & pull back into the carport again & start over....watching BOTH sides this time....not like it mattered, 'cause whichever way I turned the wheel the trailer kept going back to the ditch! After about 15 minutes of sheer frustration I decided the Hell with it, I'll just un-hook it from the car & wheel it down by hand. Welllll.....that 'little" trailer weighs a couple hundred pounds...& the driveway is steep right there....and as I started to back it up I quickly realized that gravity was gonna suck big time & probably drag me down with it. So I did the other choice & decided to try it with me in front, leading the way....that situation started to deteriorate VERY quickly so I dropped the tongue thinking to take a moment to figure this out. But that was just enough weight leaning downhill for the "trailer from Hell" personality to take over. The front edge of the box clipped a rather nasty blow to the back of my left thigh...sending me face & hands first onto the grass between it & the log wall. Of course I landed mostly on my right knee...you know...the one that is almost healed from the last little lawn debacle...have a nice bruise there now...but I digress....back to the process gone berserk.

As thoughts of a broken leg or being squished & trapped between the trailer & the logs flashed thru my head, the pull of gravity forced the altering of the flight path so my little culprit was now facing more perfectly for the next phase of it's escape....fortunately away from me! It sped down the rest of the driveway, breaking the speed of sound...or else that was the sound of my last nerve shattering, could have been either one! As I rose from the ground & stared in horror, wondering what it was going to hit, the call of yet another ditch took over the flight plan & sure enough, with a rather resounding clunk, clank & thunk, the trailer from Hell went flying into the drainage ditch at the bottom of my hill! I limped forward, following the cleared path & marveling at the scatches in the driveway and across the lawn.

Feeling the back of my leg was kind of achy, I reached down & discovered there was now a rather obvious rip in my jeans & a somewhat painful spot to correspond with it...but I didn't feel any blood, so just kept going. I stood for about 2 seconds gazing at the forelorn sight of the wild thing...tongue plowed into the side of the ditch & tilted at about a 90 degree angle...had another "hmmmm, now what do I do?" moment. Then continued the rest of the way down the hill to the still at home "he" man. I tapped gently on the door & Darryl listened to my pleas for help with a little smile on his face....took me a while to figure out just why he was smiling. He gathered up the 2 boys wrestling on the floor & piled them into his truck & proceded up the hill with me limping along side. (I figured I wasn't gonna be able to sit down quite right anyway, so might as well walk!) He & the 2 boys man-handled the little bastard out of the ditch & wheeled it back UP the hill & into the carport where it belongs. As I thanked him profusely he said think nothing of it....he's had to do the same thing about 5-6 times before. Seems when his sister lived in this house something was always getting out of control & flying down the hill, once it was the car with her hanging half out of it at the time! Guess that explains the little smile! Then we had the discussion about why they worked so hard to PUSH the thing back uphill & he said "well...those little trailers are just about impossible to back up straight....seem to have a mind of their own & just go whichever way they feel like!" NOW he tells me!

I got up a couple of times during the night last night....getting out of bed was kinda "hurtful" on that left leg...and I just kinda generally ache all over..wandered down to the carport this morning & checked out my "runaway" & noticed a big clump of red dirt still clinging to it's snout...reached down & felt the bruise on my right knee...and the 2 BIG lumpy bruises on my left thigh & the one long scratch that goes with the hole in my jeans....and thought to myself...serves ya right ya bastard....I'll just leave that clump there to remind you what happens to bad boys who try to run away from home!

Wonder if I can get a bid on this thing from eBay...but I'd have to be honest & say only bid if you never need to back up!!
On a happier note....I survived!! And my reward came in this morning's paper...if you remember, I was bemoaning the fact that the local Shoney's had closed up, taking it's breakfast buffet with it...my little Sunday morning treat. In the online version of my paper...there it was in big bold headlines....RYAN'S HAS OPENED A BREAKFAST BUFFET!! It took me about 1 minute to get dressed, jump in the car & beat a path to their door. All's right with the world! Well.....as long as ya don't count that I currently have some difficulty sitting down on anything that isn't well cushioned....unfortunately, this includes the toilet!
Stay tuned for the next exciting newsletter from Camp-Run-A-Muck!!!

Chocolate!

I posted this a few years ago on one of my forums & decided to move it here so it won't get lost. It was right around Easter when I divulged my secret passion!

I hate this time of year! Can't go to Wally World until at least a week after Easter or those damn Snickers Eggs will scream for me sooooooo loud! I have to drive by there on my way home & I can hear their voices from a block away. If I could just buy one box (has 3 or 4 eggs in it, about the eqivalent of 1 regular sized snickers bar, but oh so much creamier in the middle!) I might be ok, but I seem to buy 5 or 10 boxes at a time. The resulting "crowd roar" effect wakes me out of a sound sleep to raid the closet in the middle of the night, causes me to race home....just knowing they are waiting for me....running lights, blasting innocent pedestrians with my horn, screaming if that doesn't move them fast enough. Flinging myself out of the car before it rolls completely to a stop, I lunge wildly thru the door, scattering cats in all directions, skipping my usual dash for the bathroom, I break the sound barrier making it to the kitchen cabinet. In the hopes of quieting the voices screaming in my head, I unwrap the precious gem & pop the whole ping-pong ball sized goody in my mouth, while unwrapping the next one....and the next...and the next...
A half hour later I sit with strips of foil paper surrounding me like confetti from a hero's welcome home parade, heady from the rush of sweetness, finally remembering that I "skipped the bathroom" on the way in. Situation approaching critical, I bolt, flinging clothes in every direction, fully aware that after the orgy I've just allowed myself, they will probably not fit my body again in this lifetime. Mission accomplished I get myself under control, head back to the kitchen to destroy the evidence, only to be greeted by the closet shelf, now empty of it's burden of delights. It looks so barren......Wally World IS open 24 hours...............where are my fat clothes, I HAVE to go to the store now!

(As you can tell from this....I have very little self control when it comes to chocolate!)

Lawn care...I don't care!

The lawn hasn't been mowed in ages! I have good excuses tho....first it was a bike trip to visit with friends in Chattanooga, then right after I got back I twisted my ankle when I stepped down from my bathroom & had to sit with my foot up for two days before I could even think about walking more than a few feet at a time. Heck, I didn't even manage to make it down stairs to the computer, and couldn't drive my car with the clutch needing input from the damaged foot.
The following week I spent two days riding with some friends over at the Dragon in N. Carolina & East Tennessee, so what with getting ready to go & winding down afterwards a couple more days managed to slip away. Throw in a few sprinkles of rain & last week I helped a friend who is preparing to go full time RV'ing.....well, the household chores have just kind of taken a back burner lately.
But yesterday was decently cool & the weatherman promised rain for later in the day and since the back yard weeds were tall enough to provide cover for the deer population & the front yard had grass that could now hide a large dog that belongs to my neighbor. First I had to climb on the roof & drag about 100 pounds of leaves from the gutters since the last time it rained it looked like several versions of Niagra Falls & I wanted to run over the leaves instead of raking them up. When the heck did I become afraid of heights? I was hanging onto the shingles with a major case of butt-pucker, sure that my life was about to flash before my eyes as I crashed to the ground. I was lucky...this time. So finally I bit the bullet & started up the self propelled mower.
Self-propelled is nice if you have a level lawn, but my back yard is full of dips & on a severe partial slope which is why I don't take the ride-on up there much. It's just too scary! There are also some tree stumps cleverly hidden amongst the weeds, so it's a bit like playing a pinball machine....you're either bouncing off things, getting stuck in holes, only to be richocheted out in some uncontrolled direction when the power wheels hit bottom, or losing total control when the slope starts applying gravity to the mix. It was quite a workout for my bad knee & not completely healed ankle. I kept praying for it to rain so I could call it a day, but nooooo!
So now it's time for the front yard, yet another challenging slope with a few trees to dodge around, a rock lined ditch to not fall into & a ride-on mower that kills the engine if you attempt to back up with the blades running. I'm sure that is a safety factor of some kind, along with the kill switch that goes into action if your butt comes off the seat, but it can make things kind of awkward when you have no choice but to ride across the slope with your tushie hangin off the uphill side to keep the thing from rolling over on top of you.
My property is about 1 1/2 acres & about half of it is a bit heavily wooded, so that means lots of tree limbs & branches find their way to the ground. This translates into a choice of running over the small ones & deciding if that one right in front of you is small enough, or stopping the mower to get off & move the risky ones out of the way. My mower is a bit shy on the ammenities & luxuries....no cup holder, no automatic shifting & you have to operate 3 different levers plus a clutch to keep things moving. Maybe that explains the reluctance to keep climbing on & off to keep from running things over.
I usually just keep on plugging away & the sound of little branches being chopped up must make my neighbors think I have some kind of bush hog on a rampage. They should be sitting on top of it when this happens!
The real challenge this time was trying to keep the thing from sliding sideways in all that long grass. Not much of a problem once you get used to it, but the first few times around it can be pretty un-nerving when it slips down a foot while your butt is hanging off the uphill side!
It took me a bunch of hours to get the job done yesterday....had to keep running over large patches of places that wouldn't cooperate on the first pass....the penalty for letting it get so long is that the mower just kind of lays the grass down & the blades can't get a good whack at it. Then I had to keep running over the big piles of cut grass to mulch them up more so it didn't just lay there & kill whatever was under it.
It looks nice today when I sit on the front porch or look out the back window. But I have hives all over my hands & wrists....and they are the itchy kind! My knee is killing me & the sore ankle is threatening to swell up again. My back has also joined the list of ailments, I have a blister on my knuckle that defies any explanation of origin...and it's seems to be headed for infection. AND IT NEVER RAINED A DROP!! So now all that thatch is looking like 1000 bird's nests exploded all over the place. It's supposed to rain today & tomorrow but nothing yet. Is it tomorrow yet???