Six Acres and a Mule

The problem with public parks? The “public” has no say.

People who sit behind desks can shut public parks down, lock them up, and patrol them with low flying, whirling knife-bladed, spy drones. And a person can shake their grubby little fist at the sky only to have their picture taken and then placed on the wall of the un-desirables and trouble mongers who violate parks.

You cannot touch the king’s grass or swing on the queen’s swing set, or feed the royal ducks.

The answer? Everyone should own a big-a$$ed park, just like the Obamas in Martha’s Vineyard. Big cities, zero lot lines, sewage shooting past your head in the apartment wall next to your face cannot be good for human animals, in my opinion. Better to roam open spaces and breathe big air.

So, that’s my proposal. A park for everyone.

Give me a park or give me death. Six acres of park and a mule.

We have a park, of sorts, but no mule. It’s six acres and a back-breaking amount of work, but our park is open.

Activities include: Fence building under the blinding, sterilizing Florida sunshine, social distancing easily enforced; animal poop moving, equipment provided; spent bullet digging in the sandhill on the shooting range, keep what you find; branch, log, and stick dragging, cardio and strength building guaranteed.

My husband often sits in the glow of a gently setting sun, sighs, and talks of life in a condo. I hush him and send him out to feed the chickens.

He once tried to get me to sell everything, travel the world with him, and live in Marriot hotels.

Stunned, I said, “Do you know how fast I’d be out pulling weeds in their tasteful landscaping?”

“You could live on room service,” he countered.

“But I need dirt.” I smiled around the grit of sand in my teeth.

“I know,” he sighed.

My son-in-law once described hobby farming. “Farming is buying animals that poop and then moving the poop around.”

My response? “What’s your point?”

Parks are a lot of work. It’s true. But it’s good honest, back-to-nature (real nature, not that crazy Disney crap that makes people think ducks wear pants or don’t eat the entrails out of other animals) work.

Dirt . . . it does a body good.

Dirt for everyone.

Linda (Digger) Zern

How America Went Soft

In the middle of a once in a lifetime (from my lips to God’s ear) viral pandemic, my dryer tried to kill itself.

As I scooped dog food out of the 600 lb. bag of dog kibble (I believe in being prepared) I noticed my left cheek burning with the heat of a thousand suns. The heat was radiating out from the side of my stacked dryer.

“That ain’t right,” I whispered to no one. “Sherwood!” I howled. “The dryer is trying to burn the house down!!”

We turned the dryer off. “That’ll fix it,” we said. And it did. Of course the heap of slowly souring laundry cried out for relief, and that’s when I re-discovered the clothesline, clothes pins, and the sweet smell of line-dried clothes.

Things I’ve discovered from hanging laundry after a fifty year hiatus.

1.)   The sky. The wind. The weather. Hanging clothes on a line will put you back in touch with real, unconditioned air. I am one with the elements.

2.)   The smell is beyond science to replicate. I don’t care what chemically treated product you toss into that electric clothes shrinker, outside has a smell all its own: clean, fresh, light, pure.

3.)   My clothes, hanging all in a line, is a task that satisfies my need to work and do and accomplish. I can see a pattern in my doing. It completes me.

4.)   FYI: I want to be wrapped in line-dried sheets upon my death and buried in the back pasture.

5.)   Towels dried in the sun become one part Brillo pad and one part sandpaper. Whatever germs are still creeping about on your body after washing with the highly scented, overly artificial soap of modern hygienic practices, a sun-dried towel will scrape those critters right off into the dustbin of history.

6.)   Americans got soft the day clothesline-dried towels became electric dryer fluffed cotton balls warmed in the belly of a fossil fuel sucking, fire breathing, lint burner.

7.)   Number six is just a theory.

I pull a wet sheet from the basket, clip it to the line, watch it flap gently in the breeze, and breathe deeply. It smells like my great-grandmother and the sun and the earth and the peace of quiet things done well.

The repairman will be here Monday. Sigh.

Linda (Fresh Scent) Zern