The Great Woodlief Migration of 2008 has begun. Today I spent 12 hours painting in the new house. I also made the flooring guys listen to my music, which ranged from Lyle Lovett to the Hackensaw Boys to Death Cab for Cutie. The probably think I’m deranged, but then they probably don’t care so long as the check cashes.
The boys played by our new pond a good part of the day. We saw a dead snake floating in it, which I thought would make a good deterrent for Isaac (“See? He drowned. That’s an icky snake in there, isn’t it?”). Instead he got a stick and tried to fetch the thing out. For the most part there’s nowhere on the property where he can drown unless there’s been a hard rain, but now I hear there are bobcats.
Bobcats. I was all set to get a rifle, until a friend explained that his daughter shooed one away with a stick once, when it threatened her chickens.
I’m still getting the rifle, with scope, because I also have a beaver issue. Beavers are only cute in cartoons. In real life they chew down your saplings. There’s one working on a sapling to which my back porch has a clear LOS. Best get your affairs in order, Mr. Beaver, because there’s a new sheriff in town.
I’m sure after a couple of evenings I’ll break down and get somebody to trap him, but it gets the blood up nonetheless, playing sniper from one’s own back porch, which I could never do in the old neighborhood, except with an invisible rifle, which is a pity because it was a target-rich environment, if only lawyers and accountants were fair game, and around tax time I think we all agree that they should be.
Tomorrow we load a big truck. I’m pretty sure I would rather take a baseball bat across both knees, but with my luck that’s not going to happen between now and the time I have to go pick up the truck. So we’ll be loading. I may even tell you about it, if I can figure out how to get my satellite-card Internet doohickey thing to work, because in our new and unnamed locale, there’s no cable.
No cable, no city water, no sidewalks, no homeowner’s association. Actually there is an HOA, but it has one member, and his name is Tony Woodlief. Further, as King of the Woodlief Homeowner’s Association, I hereby decree that there will be no ridiculous walls built at homeowner expense, no strictures against ugly treehouses or redneck-looking sheds, and further, that all members of our HOA can walk around buck raving naked whenever they please.
It’s good to be the king.
