Chapter 6: Energy Vampires

Welcome to chapter 6: Energy Vampires. With Jackson off at school and the major hurdles behind us, life became downright mundane.  The homestead was running like a machine.  Not a particularly well-oiled or high-performance machine, mind you; more like a rusty cymbal playing monkey or a squeaky tricycle that only turns to the left. 

There were still loads of hay bales in need of deconstruction, 20+ acres of property line to be cleared for fencing, and a hundred other things. The truth is that there wasn’t much of that happening.  It was still 90 degrees or better with that good ole swamp jungle humidity making it downright miserable.  EVERY DAY.  It was damn hot, and I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get out there and get after it.  Walking outside to the port-o-toilet or the storage containers was enough to work up a notable sheen. 

Elbow grease is one thing

Imagine walking outside in your jeans, long sleeves, and rain boots.  Heading straight for the pond, pool, or lake nearest you.  Wading in until the water is up over your head, and then out the other side.  Your dripping wet, your feet are squishing in your boots and a cloud of gnats is swarming your head.  Gnats, who, by the way, are hell-bent on dying a martyr’s death in your eyeballs, nostrils, or mouth. (what is the deal with that anyway?!)  This is what a day of work in the hot humid Virginia summer looks like.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I have an aversion to getting sweaty or an allergy to hard work. The problem is that after the well-earned sweat of a hard day’s work, you’re going to need to shower and change of clothes!  Until this point in my life, I haven’t given either of those things a second thought.  Now, a shower means the water tank needs to be refilled.  A change of clothes means the stinking dirty clothes monster in the corner gets fed.  The foul beast can’t just be taken down to the basement and tossed in the washer but has to be herded into the car and taken into town to be washed. 

Obsess much?

I have become acutely aware of the weather forecast, checking my weather app every 45 minutes for any indication that relief is on the horizon.  It isn’t.  Obsession is the word Byron uses.  Annoyingly, he says there isn’t anything I can do about it and wonders why I worry about it.  Even if he is technically correct, he just doesn’t understand.  He asks me why I have such an aversion to wearing the same sweaty clothes I wore to work in yesterday.  Clothes which can now stand on their own, supported by the crust of dried salt that poured out of my skin the day before.  He tells me going to bed without a shower won’t cause loss of limb or premature death.  He doesn’t get it.  In any case, I’m spending a large portion of my time in the camper these days.

Maybe I’ll write a blog… 😉

The bug days of summer

In addition to the weather, the insects are also vying for my energy.  Not the cool ones that I talked about in But Seriously: About Those Hay Bales, that live peacefully in the hay bale fortresses.  Apparently, in planting this fiberglass tuber here, we had unknowingly initiated a territorial dispute with the arthropod inhabitants.  Having a complete and unforgivable indifference to property rights, the dispute quickly escalated into an all-out war. We are grossly outnumbered against the inexhaustible troops which change with the seasons. 

Within a day or two of moving in,the first battalion was led by a wave of tiny black sugar ants.  It took a minute for my consistently sleep deprived brain to wade through the state of fog and register the little black army.  They moved with purpose and precision in orderly lines throughout the kitchen.  Had they not been invading our personal space and marching all over our food space, I might have been impressed. 

In response,  we stopped leaving the cat’s bowl out at night and began a more rigorous cleaning routine.  Starting with a preliminary decontamination followed by enhanced scrubbing and monitoring techniques.  The wave ebbed as the tiny soldiers lost interest.  Victory.

You’re not from around here, are you?

Next came the not so subtle indicator letting us know that keeping a compost container inside a camper is a poor decision.  I opened the lid one morning to dump the melon rind and berry stems leftover from breakfast and I was slapped in the face by a foul, sour stench, followed by a small poof of fruit flies.  I looked in the bucket and saw a thousand teeny white maggots wriggling around.  Ugh!!  Where had they come from?  I hadn’t noticed any flies or maggots prior to this.   Regardless of their mysterious origins, compostables and food scraps are now taken outside immediately following meals.  So much for convenience.

Then the moths.  Every night after the sun went down, they lined up outside the camper door and waited, quietly for the inevitable security breach.  At the first sliver of light exiting the opening door, they rush through the gap in a swirling, fluttering vortex.  Once inside they scatter from view.  A few decoys deploy to distract us by circling light bulbs like simpletons while the rest take up positions out of sight.  These are special forces moths waiting until the lights are out and your defenses are down to begin their assault.  Once you are asleep they drive you into madness fluttering their tiny wings in your ears and face.  These tactics are very effective but at great cost. Unfortunately for them, the pint-size warriors don’t have much stamina.  Their exhausted little corpses litter the bedspread and floor by morning.

The Fly(s)

We continually deal with a formidable militia of common flies whose entry tactics mimic those of the moths’, although they attack during the day.  They live much longer and have seemingly infinite ranks.  We have scientifically proven that when hit with a fly swatter, they reflexively splinter into ten more flies.  While their casualties pile up on the floor, the attacking force only grows stronger.  The futility of the fly swatter nearly drained us of hope however, we have found an ally in the furry little jumping spiders who lurk in the shadows.  Unexpectedly, they launch out, snatch one of the flying monkeys and drag it off, back into the crevices.  While this is an ongoing battle, with the help of the spiders, we are confident that we will triumph in the end. 

This is just a bad dream right?

Most unsettling has been the stink bug infiltration.  The first buzzing bug that appeared in the camper was amusing. The awkward thing slowly whirred its way from one end of the camper to the other inspiring Roscoe to jump straight up out of his bed onto all 4 feet.  Eyeballs bulging out of his head, he growled and slowly, valiantly backed away, until he was peeping out from behind Byron’s legs.  We laughed and took the bug back outside. 

 When we turned around, the camper windows were covered in an ever-growing fleet of the flat clumsy bugs.  One by one, they slip in between the screen and the sliding window.  They shimmy thru the crack between the screen door and threshold.  Suddenly, they were everywhere; clinging to the kitchen hand towel, my bathrobe, under the pillows, walking the ceiling, inside the sleeve of my sweatshirt.  Everywhere.  Between the dropping temperatures of the coming fall and our spider allies, we noticed their numbers thinning.

We barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief when the Asian lady beetles appeared, seemingly relieving the stink bugs of duty.  While much cuter than the stink bugs and easily confused with their more likable cousins the ladybugs, they’re just plain annoying in swarms.  Alas, this is rural life…in an RV.  What doesn’t eat you makes you stronger, right? 

The bright side

Suffice it to say, I have had some time to examine where my energy and attention goes.  Admittedly, much of it is consumed by studying weather patterns and being irritated by bugs, but I have also made some positive changes.  Some would say positive anyway.  Others would probably say, “wow, she’s really let herself go.”

Since moving out here, I have spent 0 minutes watching television.  I have lost interest in what the celebrities are up to and what new shows are coming out.  This has improved my mental state immensely.  Cutting way back on the soul-sucking, energy-draining “news” programs has allowed me to maintain and nurture a few extra brain cells each day. 

The time once dedicated to shopping online is now spent reading one of the many books on farming and homesteading that I’ve resolved to read before spring.  Oh, and I quit dying my gray hair!  This was something I didn’t think I’d ever have the guts to do.  I worried, a lot, about looking “old”.  I know it does make me look older and truthfully, it does still bother me a little.  On the other hand, I save hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours of time.  It is a relief to stop thinking about what all of those chemicals may be doing to my body and the environment.

Additionally, I know a whole lot of foxy ladies who don’t mess around with that nonsense and flaunt hair au naturale. More than anything else, my new perspective has made it difficult to continue lumping “dying my hair” in the “what actually matters” category.  Do I see a movement on the horizon???  #MakeGrayOkay.  

But what about Bob?

Aaaannnndd, I have become a budding know-it-all on the local plant, animal, and insect species as I spend A LOT of time trying to identify every species I come across.  You can’t be a decent farmer if you don’t know what you’re talking about or what bug you’re fishing out of your oatmeal!

I will not lie, the end of summer has never been such a welcomed event.  Normally, the changing leaves and shortening days make me a little blue.  Winter is soooo not my thing.  Along with the foliage, my finger and toenails begin to change colors in late August.  Turning a corpse-like blue, they don’t regain the colors of the living until mid-May.  This year, however, I literally and single-handedly, willed fall into being.  I’m not being hyperbolic.  I made that shit happen this year, for real.  You’re welcome. 

Now that being outdoors is pleasant again, it’s back to the grind, moving those bales and clearing that perimeter.  We’ll start on the fencing before long, assuming we still have a bank account at that point, that is.  Perhaps, soon I’ll write a post recounting the ways in which our savings has been ravaged.  Buying a wasteland property, resuscitating it, and making it conducive to life is way more expensive than I had expected!  Who knew?  But that is for another day.  For now, the work continues, and we keep our heads down taking it one day at a time.