Switches

The weather has been great and it's been a very busy weekend getting caught up on work around here. That window that leaked during Sandy's visit a few weeks ago is now sealed up and ready for another few years.

The chicken coop is cleaned out, the dirty hay is on the garden for next years fertilizer and new, fresh smelling, clean hay is under the roost and in the nests. The girls seem no happier though. The entire time I had them shut out of the coop while cleaning and they were stuck in the outdoor pen, Rowdy the hyper pup was chasing around the outside of the fence causing them to worry and scurry. Oh well, I guess they all got some exercise and excitement.

The wood furnace has a new seal around the door so the smoke stops leaking out and goes up the flue instead of into the basement and then the house. So now maybe I won't feel like I'm living with a camp fire blowing smoke everywhere I walk. I may have to leave the door cracked open once in a while though just because I like the smell of wood smoke...

A few more fields are cleaned up and the encroaching woods are trimmed back and ready to get into when the weather allows next spring.

As I was walking home from my daughters after getting the grandkids on the bus this morning I was noticing how brown everything has become.

I couldn't see that this early in the morning a week ago, but the time change has made it a bit brighter now during the early hours of the morning.

There are no leaves left on the trees of the mountain. There are very few left on the longest lasting trees in my yard. But there are plenty on the ground. That is one of the few jobs I have left to finish up sometime today.

As I got back to my place I took notice to the trees and bushes around the yard that need some of the lower branches trimmed so I don't have to duck and dodge them as I'm walking around. That made me smile.

Not so much that my grandmother was mean, but more because we boys were so much like my pup Rowdy. We were always into and up to something ornery and were getting into trouble.

But I can not ever remember having a need to trim any trees or bushes around the lawn or near the house. Grandma kept them pruned by taking of switches to use on our back sides!

That woman could bend, twist and snap off those green twigs faster that you could scream and run!

That was around fifty eight years ago and I can still not begin to tell you to this day how it's done with such perfection, grace and speed. I've tried and tried, but still have to go get some pruning shears...

Some may feel she was wrong in using her switches over our back sides. Some may think she was the most horrible being in the world.

But as I think back she taught us to listen and behave or face the consequences.

Because of her caring enough to do so we didn't have to face the police teaching that after we grew older by locking us up. We learned that when authority spoke, you listened and heeded. We learned that by breaking the laws or rules there would be consequences to be paid and those consequences would in some way hurt. And the more you fought against those rules, laws and consequences, the more you would get hurt!

So in a way we learned to be responsible for ourselves and our actions. Or misactions.

To this day that too is a huge part of what keeps me smiling.

I understand there are rules and laws that must be followed for the good of humanity as a whole and I understand that they must be followed or worked at in a humane way over time to be changed. Not just ignored and broken when I feel like it.

So thank you grandma, mom and dad for the lessons and the spankings.

I may not have been smiling then, but I'm sure smiling now!

Now as for grandpap... Well he did dish out a very few of those spankings. But I swear he was more often the cause!

I do think he taught me the best of my orneriness. And for that I thank him.