Sunday...

I have not been the best company lately, that's for sure. In one blessed heart-beat, I would have a For Sale sign out on the front lawn here. I cannot see myself living in this big old house until my last day on this planet, which could come sooner than one thinks given the number of scorpions and snakes that have been around lately. Not to mention the bitterness that sweeps over me every time I bring Savannah outside into the yard and see her shaking with fear when she looks over at the road.

When Savannah goes outside in the morning, she is the happiest of dogs... her tail is up and she walks easily around the grass without a care in the world. Her afternoon walk is just the same. However... it's the after-dinner walk that's heart-breaking. I am certain that Savannah remembers that night when she bolted and ran off because of the neighbor's fireworks. And no matter how charitable I can feel towards that neighbor during the daylight hours, all of the badness comes up to the surface when I see what Savannah goes through just to be outside before it gets dark.  I sound like a broken record with this, and no one knows that better than me. As I said, I've not been the best of company, not even for myself.

I've been searching for book editors, and doing research on 'query' letters. I have written out such a letter in long-hand, correcting and changing it, putting it aside and once again editing it.  I think I have found an editor that would understand and appreciate a story about a puppy written in diary format, with many entries written by the puppy herself.

Our illustrious handyman has been here for a couple of weeks, washing the house and removing bird nests that are no longer being used by the barn swallows. It's the nests that were attracting the snakes to our porch, I'm sure, and heaven only knows how many birds the snakes got in the middle of the night. My husband has killed four snakes in the past two weeks... our friend Cindy has killed five (hers were copperheads, our were chicken snakes). In my opinion, any snake is a bad thing, and not to be spared. I'd rather have field mice running around the property than the blasted snakes.

Life should be getting easier, not harder. Life isn't easy out here in the hills. Too many insects and critters, too many predators, way too much wildlife, not enough really good restaurants and bookstores, not one good shoe store (although there's no place to wear pretty shoes out here anyway unless you stay in the house), and no museums to speak of.  And that's about what I've been doing. Staying in the house, mostly. I'm reading a lot, and keeping my very bad attitude all to myself.

And today was Father's Day. I looked at old photos of my dad. And I tried to hear his voice in my mind. That's getting harder and harder as the years go by. Maybe daddy doesn't like the Hill Country either.

Losing it...

...and losing it big time. I hate it here, hate it here, hate it here. And by 'here' I mean this godforsaken country bubble that we've called home since 2009. What in the blessed world possessed us to buy a house so far out of the city limits. Must have been a blatant stroke of insanity.  And it was me who fell in love with this house, my husband who fell in love with the property... and both of us should have had our heads examined before signing on the dotted line.

Just the other night I was sitting in my chair in the breakfast room, browsing on Google and looking for a literary agent. (I've learned that without an agent, one's chances of publishing a book are zero to zilch.)  As I was scrolling down the computer screen, I felt my blouse moving... odd... so I just flicked at my blouse without even looking down... and not a split second later, I thought I had better look to see if anything was there... and right on the cushion of my chair was a scorpion. And not a little one.

I jumped up, Sweet Pea jumped up (the cat was on the chair opposite me), and my husband came running into the breakfast room (he had been watching a ball game in the TV room). Gary killed the scorpion, Sweet Pea ran out of the room, and I cursed everything about the insect world in this entire state.

Along with that first scorpion, we've been having snakes on the porch who are attracted to the nests of the barn swallows. Gary has killed three snakes in about a week's time, and heaven only knows how many baby birds have been eaten by other snakes after dark because I keep sweeping up broken nests every morning.  And every day, I curse the wildlife that surrounds us out here.

Tonight was a repeat of the other night.... Gary was watching TV and I was searching the Internet for literary agents who might represent my 357-page story about Savannah.  And then I noticed that Sweet Pea was sitting on the floor and just staring at me... at my slacks... and his eyes kept moving up and up... and I looked down and there was another damn scorpion crawling from my slacks to my blouse.

I screamed for Gary and tried to hold the blouse away from my body... the scorpion tensed up and put his blasted tail up... but he stayed where he was and my husband flicked him off of my blouse and he landed on the floor, and then I used my shoe to smash the blasted thing because my husband wasn't wearing shoes.

Why is it that every blasted damn snake and scorpion and wasp is clearly in my sight or right near me every blasted time?  Honestly, am I wearing a welcome sign for all of the godforsaken insects and reptiles in the Hill Country?

After the scorpion thing tonight, I just lost it... shaking and crying and totally out of control... telling my husband that I hate it here, just hate it out here and I miss living in Clear Lake, miss the house that we had and the subdivision it was in... I just miss everything that we had and I could move away from this godforsaken property and never look back.

It's just always something out here.... if the baby goats aren't being slaughtered by the farmer across the road, then fireworks are going off on the other stupid neighbor's property.... snakes killing baby birds and scorpions in the house and tarantulas in the garage. I have had it. Just had it. I told my husband what I've told the ladies at the tea parties... that if anything ever happened to him, I'd be calling a realtor before calling an undertaker. Without a doubt, I'd be moving out of this house, giving the keys to a realtor and telling them to just sell it for whatever they can get for it.

After I stopped crying and shaking, I got out the vacuum cleaner and went over the rug in the breakfast room. My husband looked all over the floor and underneath all the furniture in that room. Even Gary said "What are the chances of that happening twice in just a few days?" (Well, welcome to my world.)  I have taken my lap-top out of the breakfast room. No more sitting in my quiet little corner for typing or reading. The lap-top is on the kitchen counter now and I'm standing up as I type this. I guess my next choice for a long typing session will be the dining room table or the table in the living room.

I told my husband that I've had it with living out here. I'm tired of being scared, tired of finding creatures in the house and in the garage, and I'm just tired of this blasted country bubble. I don't care how beautiful the property is, I don't care how much I love this big old house. I am just tired of it all and I could move out tomorrow if given the chance.

Stupid country bubble...

If anyone ever tells you "Let's go buy some acreage and live out in the country," run the other way. And keep running until you reach a city that has a plethora of good restaurants, a bunch of independently-owned bookshops, and department stores that sell city-clothes and high heels.

Within the last hour, my husband has killed a snake on the porch and a scorpion in the breakfast room.  The snake was most likely on its way up to one of the birds' nest that are scattered around the columns of the porch. Our handyman has been making his way around the porch this week and cleaning the siding and the columns, he has also been scraping off the nests of the barn swallows. Not because we don't like the birds--- what we don't like are the snakes that the nests attract. There have been three snakes on the porch in the last two weeks, one of which was hanging over the railing above the back door and as I opened up the door, the dangling snake missed falling on me by just inches as it dropped onto the porch.

Tonight as I sat in my chair at the breakfast room table, browsing through Pinterest boards, I felt something on my blouse and thinking it was just a hair or something, I flicked it away. Then I looked at the chair cushion and there was the scorpion, a bit dazed and not yet lifting his tail to attack. I got out of that chair right quick and screamed for my husband. He got the scorpion onto the floor and then smashed him with his shoe.

Jeez... enough already. Snakes and scorpions and stupid new neighbors who are shooting off fireworks every chance they get.  Every time I get comfortable out here in these godforsaken hills, something happens to make me hate everything all over again.

Too many nests...

...so the barn swallows have just got to move on.  Because of all the barn swallow nests, snakes are coming up on the porch--- they're attracted to the eggs, the baby birds, and the adult birds. Wonderful. Just what we need.

Last night just before I went to take Savannah outside for the last time, I looked outside at the porch (checking for snakes because of the one that was hanging above the back door a few days ago)... and there was a long snake making his way up the porch column and right into one of the empty nests along the ledge. I repeat: wonderful.

I called my husband and told him of the latest intruder and he went to the garage and got the long rake and the hoe... and used the rake to pull that nest down and the hoe to kill the snake. Then, just to make sure the snake was really dead, he got the hedge-clippers and cut off its head. Jeez... I'm cringing as I type this blasted thing. It's a wonder I can fall asleep at night, honestly.

So, now the plan is to have our handyman scrape off all of the nests after all the babies are flying and the bird families have gone elsewhere (when it gets too hot here). We'll have to see what we can put up around the porch to keep those birds away next Spring. I know that birds don't like to see owls where they build nests, but there's a lot of columns around this porch... do we need to perch a fake owl on top of each column?

Give me a blessed break. It's going to be a long Summer.

Got spiders?

Not only do we have spiders, we have tarantulas. Damn. Give me a blessed country break.

In the past six days, I have killed two huge black fuzzy tarantulas that were crawling across the garage floor. I sprayed them with wasp spray, which sent them scurrying towards the overhead garage door, and when they got close to that door, I opened it up, swept their furry bodies outside, then slammed the door shut, went out the side door of the garage with the broom, and finally swept the dying tarantula off into the grass.  Such a ridiculous process, but if those damn things are stupid enough to get inside my garage, then I'm sorry but I'm not going to have much mercy on their souls.

All week long, I've been wondering how many tarantulas could be in that garage that I haven't yet seen, and could they find their way into my car?  Last thing I need as I'm driving down the highway is to see a tarantula crawling along the dashboard of my car.

We've had so much rain here since mid-May that roads in the center of our town have either flooded or, in one instance, washed away, concrete and all. Heaven only knows how long it will take the town's Powers That Be to get that repaired. We're having a new library built in town and honestly, the Greeks built the Acropolis in less time than it's taking the construction crew to complete this library.

The rains have caused damage to our roof, so we've had roofing companies out here for estimates. One roofer took over an hour to draw diagrams and measure this three-story house of ours, and another roofer went up to the second floor and took less than five minutes to come up with a proposal. Now how is that possible?

Our trip to Canada is now a distant memory. It rained every day while we were gone, and it's been raining nearly every day since we got home.  Welcome back to the country...