Three Confessions

When you spot errors or misspellings in her blog, it's because Fiorella wrote the it during the evening hours, when her brain is half-asleep. Or because she wrote it during the day, when her mind is preoccupied with daily living. Or the dog was disreacting her. Or the sun was in her eyes. Or she just plain made a mistake. Sorry.
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Fio's Spanish-language soap opera is really heating up, and she loves every dram-filled moment of it. Robert is beginning to remember his childhood as Juan Pablo, the goods and the bads of it, the latter of which is that his Aunt Ana, who never did like him, was the one who shoved him through the orphanage door and slammed it shut. Meanwhile his new-found mother and grandmother are driving his live-in-fiance, Julieta, nuts with their efforts to bring her into the family. And then there's Linda, one of Robert's new-found sisters, who's determined to break up his relationship with Julieta. And that's just for starters.
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Fio does not have a good reputation with some of her more eco-concious friends. Not only does she
favor the trapping and elimination of armadillos, but she's planted invasive, non-native trees and bushes in her garden area. Sorry, ladies, but armadillos are nasty creatures that ravage gardens and lawns, and the only decorative flora that can thrive in the hill country are tough cookies like fontinias, nandenas, boxwoods, bayberries, and palmettos.

Paranoia Revisited

Fiorella lives in an isolated settlement of rugged individualists whose rocky tracts measure at least five acres.  In her experience, the area's worst threat is the armadillos who tear up our meager lawns, but the area's leadership figures seem to have more vivid imaginations. Remember the outcry a few months ago about non-residents driving into our idyllic enclave?  Apparently the hew and cry came to nothing once the cost of decals, floodlights, and security cameras was toted up, but then a new bandwagon came rumbling down our country road.

A person who lives in a neighboring single-road subdivision has bought land in our subdivision and wanted to build what amounted to a road on it to connect across to our road so he would have another way out when the river crossing his road out front flooded.  (Got all that?)

The neighborhood association officers promptly went ballistic and sent out communications about how the road would  threaten our security, lower our property values, and violate the deed restrictions. The last charge hit pay dirt and a a judge issued a restraining order against the would-be road builder.

What Fio draws from all this is that canny politicians will manufacture causes, often dire threats, to radicalize their troops and solidify their own power--or even just to stir up the ant hill.  Think about it.
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Springtime in the Hill Country

The wildflowers pave the fields
The whitetail does are fat with fawn
The birds pipe cheerful melodies
And armadillos plow my lawn

Out of Control

Fiorella's mother had all her ducks in a row.  Her lawn was mowed and edged, her bushes trimmed, and her planting beds lush with flowers.  Her house was warm and welcoming, beautifully decorated, and immaculate.  Her life was secure and well-regulated.

Fiorella's landscaping is a mess, her house is a mess, and her life is a mess.  She's plotting to turn the west planting bed into a flagstone terrace to thwart the armadillos, but is at a loss for the north bed.  Even with an in-ground watering system, flowers are out of the question and the bushes have gone sparse and leggy.  Her home  is a lost cause inside too--too many of Fio's unfinished projects lying around, too much of Husband's stuff that he planned to take care of later.  And her literary career is uncertain at best.

Which is why Fiorella sits around brooding and eating chocolate ice cream.

Rocks in Her Head

Fiorella has placed a print-out on meteorites on the little table next to the front door so that someone who has the time and the inclination can check out the rocks the line our 180-linear yard driveway.  She's convinced some of them are of extra-terrestrial origin, just as she's convinced she's part Neanderthal, and that someday the planting beds will be free of armadillos.

Return of the Ravaging Hordes

We must have the tastiest soil in the neighborhood because the armadillos are back.  They've plowed up the zoysia grass, ravaged the planting beds, and dug about ten inches down next to the water pipe.  Fio started filling the hole the other day and the dirt just kept disappearing into the depths.  She wouldn't be surprised if a litter of the little monsters ended up buried live down there.

What to do about them?  Fio bought a trap and set it up along the house next to the water pipe, but nothing's happened yet.  And if it does, what then?  Let's face it--neither Husband nor Fio would deliberately kill another living creature. And it doesn't seem right to take the beast twenty miles down the road and release it into some unsuspecting farmer's cornfield.  Besides, Husband doesn't want to carry an inhabited armadillo cage around in the trunk of his car.

Sort of like Russia doesn't want to play host to a stinker like Edward Snowden.

You'll Pay for It

Armadillo, it's your day
Come feast at Fio's grub buffet
And while you're at it, clever chap,
See if you can snap the trap

Honey, I Shrank Humanity!

The armadillos are still ravaging the lawn and the birds are still after the windows. We are under attack by two ancient species.

Interestingly enough, the armadillos haven't changed for eons, but you know what the birds evolved from, which makes Fio wonder if homo sapiens will ever dwindle down to one tenth--or even one-hundredth--their current size. Interesting idea. It would mean we'd all take up a lot less space and consume a lot less food, which might save the planet. But we'd also be more vulnerable to predators. And Husband thinks we might start breeding like rabbits in the bargain.

But for a more immediate question, if the titmouse's pecking makes our windows crack, can we sue?

Armadillo Repellent

The armadillos are back so Fiorella is using the same no-cost repellent as last year, and it's working. In fact, it's working better this year because Husband has devised a dispenser that allows Fiorella to walk along the edges of the planting beds, dribbling the repellent out in an even stream as she goes.

What he did was hammer a nail through the lid of a one-quart plastic milk bottle to make a small-diameter hole (adding another, tiny hole because of something to do with air pressure). So simple, so clever, so economical. All Fio has to do is fill the bottle with home-produced repellent, snap the lid back on, and walk the walk.

Ah! Country living!