Of Thing That Hiss and Things That Zap

When I put my mind to it, I can remember being a kid in the country. Riding my bike to the mulberry tree with my brother and coming home dotted with purple stains. Walking back to the woods and coming back at a dead run being pursued by the biggest horsefly ever to exist on Earth. Riding on hay wagons with my uncle while he made up ridiculous lyrics to old hymn tunes. And the benchmark of country kid-dom: the first time I grabbed the electric fence. I can remember just about exactly where I was when that happened: the Eastern pasture field, just about parallel with the kitchen window. Dad was mending fences, and I was "helping." I knew that wire had electricity buzzing through it. Didn't Joel and I lay blades of grass between that wire and the parallel one on the pasture fence to watch them burn in half? And couldn't you hear the faint zzz-zzz-zzz as the current pulsed through? But my attention was elsewhere, and I stumbled, and reached out to steady myself... and that electric wire was what I grabbed. As I recall it, the wire froze the muscles of my hand around it and I couldn't get off of the thing until Dad yanked me loose. That's something I don't think I forgot twice. The wonderful phenomenon of natural consequences...

So Charlie had his first encounter with an electric fence a couple of days ago, and it wasn't even the poor kid's fault. We were driving down the road when I slammed on the breaks, as I often do, to observe natural phenomena. Well, not on the freeway or anything. I only do that on back roads. In this case, it was the road I live on at a low-traffic hour, and the natural phenomenon was a black snake sunning itself. We jumped out of the car to photograph the snake which, as anyone who reads this knows, is also a compulsion of mine; photographing random nature. The snake obligingly posed for me, stuck his black tongue out, and rattled his tail in the grass, pretending to be way tougher than he actually was. Since I knew him to be a common black racer, shy and non-venomous, his bluff didn't phase me. What did phase me was Charlie shrieking in my right ear. Evidently, the electric fence between us and the snake was turned on for the first time in the entire five years we've lived here, and I had forgotten to warn Charlie that yellow plastic insulators mean "This Fence Will Zap You" in the unspoken language of the country. I cuddled Charlie, and he didn't even cry, brave soul, but he did ask me, "Is my heart going to stop now!?" Yeesh. Do we really do our children any favors when we tell them terrifying things to keep them from sticking pennies in electrical sockets?

Okay, well, maybe, but terrorizing in the name of safety can be taken too far. Charlie, for instance, doesn't want to go into water deeper than his waist without a floaty, and if it is creek water deeper than the knee, he is convinced it will have snapping turtles, snakes, and alligators in it. Did one of us tell him tall tales to ward off drowning? Shame on us. Why don't kids come with user's manuals, eh? I need one, for sure. As an example, I clearly lost my mind today when I decided at 10 a.m. that it was a good idea to walk one and a half miles to the creek in ninety degree weather with four granola bars, two liters of water, a jar of peanut butter, three spoons, SPF 45, one dog, and two children under the age of seven. If you add up the numbers in that sentence and divide by three, you get my rough IQ.

The walk there went fine. Abraham said, "I walk!" and proceeded to do so for most of the way there. The walk in the creek went fine. We walked downstream instead of up, to see new things. What we got was a flatter, calmer stream, but wilder underbrush. We found a wonderful swimming hole that came up to mommy's waist. We also found a dollar in the creek water. When I proclaimed that this was the perfect place to swim, and paid us to swim there, so therefore we need not go to the Kincaid Lake pool this summer, Charlie staged a mutiny. So much for economy. What posed the greatest challenge about today's adventure was, of course, the walk home. We had been in the sun for hours, consumed our granola and spoonful's of peanut butter. Our water had gotten warm.  I was the only one still wearing a hat. We had forgotten to reapply our sunscreen, and the walk home was mostly uphill. Charlie reenacted the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. "Mo-om! Did you bring us out here to die!?" I could produce no manna, or quail, or even any more interesting reptiles, so I did my best with butterflies and flowers. Alas, I think they've outlived their fascination to small boys. Note to self: next time I decide to walk to the creek, take the wagon. And possibly a ice cream.

Pictorial for the Week 

(I won't bore you with plant details)

Isn't he vogue?

 More hearts.

Look! I'm so Amish! No, in fact, I've decided that the only way to get anything done is to take it outside and do it while the kids are getting sun-stroke. Thus, outdoor dishes! Applaud my ingenuity. Or perhaps insanity.

Check it out! We found a baby toad, smaller than a penny! We released him back into the wild, though. Being stared at by Abraham Lincoln seemed to really freak him out.