Mom's Thoughts on Paradise

In an earlier blog, I discussed my some of my feelings about Jenn being gone for the summer. But I think today was the day that I missed her the most so far.

Today was the opening of the World Cup Soccer tournament in South Africa. And, I know if she was here, we’d have watched that game together as well as many games throughout the tournament. (Along with the US team, Jenn likes to follow Portugal in particular, (which has something to do with the very cute Cristiano Ronaldo…) We always have a good time watching the multinational fans with their crazy costumes and wild hats. And of course, discussing and analyzing the various ref calls.

Jenn will have a tough time watching many games since there’s no TV at Paradise. I think she has to go into town to catch any of the games. Hopefully, she’ll be able to get time off to see the final.

We live in the “boonies” - the woods come right up to the house with only as small cleared front yard. As a consequence, most of animals native to east TN can be seen on our property. But, one thing I did not realize when we moved in, was how much of that wildlife wanted to live in or on the outside of our home.

Our welcoming visitor was a squirrel who’d climbed down the chimney, ate up quite a bit of carpeting, and chewed a number of crossbars from the windows. So, we added a chimney cap, hid the chewed up carpeting behind furniture and did without the window decorative crossbars.

Later that first summer, we learned about carpenter bees. These bees can “drill” very nice holes in wood. So now, we patrol the exterior of the house, looking for telltale piles of sawdust so we know where to eliminate the pests.

Through the years, we’ve also dealt with a momma possum and babies in the basement, a momma raccoon and babies in the shed, a snake in the bathroom, a bat in the kitchen (at Halloween no less!) , and flying squirrels.

Oh, we also have occasional mice too. I’ve spoken to the cat many times, trying to explain that it is her job to keep the house zone free of mice, but she refuses to focus on the house, and seems to prefer “woods mice.”

The flying squirrels have been a problem several times. We’ve had them get into the living room and swoop by me. We also had them get into the attic, run around all night, and store nuts – we’d here the nuts rolling down the attic.

The reason that I mention our wildlife now is that I have a birdfeeder off the deck. The type I use is a tipping feeder, so if a squirrel gets on the tray to eat, a door tips shut, and the squirrel can’t eat. The birds are too light, and the door doesn’t tip shut. So, the squirrels aren’t much of a problem anymore.

In the past, I also had problems with raccoons getting into the feeder which was hung from a Crossbar from a chain. The raccoon would sit on the crossbar, reach down, and grab the seed. So, I used a longer chain. Next, they discovered that they could use the chain to shake out the seed. So, we changed the change to a pole, and hung the feeder from the pole. Now they couldn’t shake out the seed. Eventually, they did manage to knock the feeder of the pole, and dented it so badly I had to replace it. So, I added a piece of plastic to cover the hook on the pole so the feeder couldn’t be shaken off. This has worked for many years. Till now……

My current battle is with a mother raccoon (and probably the babies in a few weeks). She’s taken the simple approach of climbing down the pole, sitting on the top of the feeder, and eating all the seed she desires. I’ll have to come up with a new solution as she’s emptied the feeder in 2 nights.

For those few who may have caught the news about the avalanche at Mt. Rainier, Jenn is safe and sound and no where hear where that happened. The avalanche happened yesterday on the main portion of the mountain. Jenn is stationed in Paradise which is well away from the avalanche zones. Several teams of climbers were impacted, and all have been rescued except one climber.

Imelda R. Marcos (the widow of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos) is often remembered for having over 3000 pairs of shoes. So, by now, you are wondering why I consider this significant or even interesting.

I’ve just gotten to the absolute bottom of the laundry pile, and found a few of Jenn’s T-shirts that got left behind. So, I folded them and went to put them in her room. I added them to the large pile of summer things that didn’t make the trip to Mt. Rainer. But, it seemed like there were an awful lot of T-shirts. Curiosity got the better of me, so I counted them – 78 T-shirts. Now, this is certainly a lot less than Imelda Marcos’s 3000 pairs of shoes, but realistically, Jenn has had much less time to develop her collection than Imelda.

I know Jenn will argue that a number of the shirts were “freebies.” The FL Alumni Associate provides Beat “Whoever” T-shirts to the first 2000 students for all home games. Jenn and her group stood in line in shifts to get the T.-shirts. So that accounts for 6 shirts in her collection.

Her collection also includes a lot of “high school” T-shirts, collected through the years, including numerous soccer T-shirts, Battle of the Bridge Shirts, etc. And, heaven forbid that she wear “high school shirts” in college. So, quite a number of new shirts were acquired pre-Florida last year. Anyway, I think in a few years, her collection of Tees will rival Imelda’s shoes!

PS - One More Thing to Worry About - I saw on the news yesterday about 9 tourists injured at Old Faithful due to a lightning strike, and I realized that I had not included lightning on my list of things to worry about (even though Jenn is no longer at Yellowstone).