6:13 pm

This morning didn't start as early as a typical Saturday at Possum Cough. I've been battling a budding sinus infection - or at least something sinus-related, because my eyes hurt when move them in their sockets, and my forehead and cheeks feel as if two devils with pickaxes are trying to tunnel their way to daylight. Last night, I stayed up until 3 am watching a movie while MeeMaw napped on the couch next to me. When we finally went to bed, I fear that I kept her awake with my tossing and turning and snorting and snurfing. I got up a bit after seven, and MeeMaw followed soon behind. She cuddled the cats for a good little while, and then I fixed us some breakfast (including skillet toast).



We decided that we'd do some work around the house today, since the weather was forecast for the mid-50s. First thing....I cleaned out the utility room and installed a rack on which MeeMaw can hang the brooms, mops, duster, etc. Then we debated about which big house chore to tackle. We decided not to work on the attic (I need to seal the flashing around a couple of the vent hoods, because rain has trickled in a time or two in the past during hard downpours), since the weather tomorrow is forecast to be very cold and rainy/snowy. The flashing sealant needs several days of above-40F temperatures, and no precipitation so it can cure properly.



While we were debating about which project to attack. a boiling, roiling fight broke out right under our feet. We were sitting here in the office when a donnybrook of feline proportions erupted. It seems that there is an opening somewhere under the deck, an opening which allows the two barn cats (Biscuit and Frito) to get under the raised dining room floor. Well, after the ruckus got truly tremendously loud, I saw a big longhaired cat with markings like a Maine Coon Cat go streaking out from under the deck up into the woodlot. Biscuit was in hot pursuit, and chased him all the way up the hill and out of sight. Defending his mate and his territory. Nice. Unfortunately, it's our territory, too, and we happen to pay the bills. We decided that acquiring and installing some latticework to block entrance beneath the deck would be a prudent chore for the day, so we took off for points south and ended up at Lowe's.



One can truly see the effects of the ongoing economic freefall when one goes to a Lowe's on a sunny 56-degree Saturday and the place is almost deserted. MeeMaw picked up a couple of houseplants for the back bedroom, then we got some landscaping staples (more about those later) and five sheets of latticework. Due to the low customer volume, it took us no time to check out and be back on the road to Possum Cough.


So we got back and unloaded the latticework....



...and MeeMaw's houseplants....

...and then MeeMaw set about filling up all four bird feeders. The warm weather has inspired our avian friends to strip the feeders bare, particularly the blue one on the south side of the house. For some reason, they shore do favor a blue feeder...

MeeMaw had to run back down to town for some things we forgot (including sinus medication), and I tried to take a nap while she was gone. However, the cows next door decided to hold a choir practice just outside the family room, so I got up and got prepared to do some cat-proofing.

By the time MeeMaw got back home, I had slithered under the deck with a roll of chicken wire (or poultry netting, as the lisping homosexual nancy-boy suburbanites call it) and a staple-gun and a bag of the aforementioned landscaping staples. These are basically enormous staples, about the size of a cell phone, which one typically drives into the ground with a hammer to hold down landscaping fabric or plastic mulch sheeting, etc. The south end of the deck is only a few inches off the ground, and has a small rock wall bordering it. This means that I can't install lattice there, but I have to have some means of preventing small mammals from infiltrating the deck perimeter. So...from my low belly-crawling vantage point, I stapled the top of the chicken wire to the underside of the deck and then pounded landscaping staples down across it in various places to secure it to the earth, thereby effectively cutting off ingress and egress from the south side of the deck. Pretty blasted smart, or so I am hoping...

Note the Orange Crush can on the left of the photo. I found two of these and about six or seven beer cans and a Skoal can under there, detritus from the previous owner, and tossed them out so that I could trash 'em. This is something I have never understood: people throwing trash in their own yards. It's a real deviant flaw in the soul, I think.

While I was down yonder, I found the secret entrance to the dining room chamber. It was a cinder block, neatly removed from the foundation wall and propped against the supports. A sheet of metal was also laying there. And aren't the soles of my shoes pretty?

After stapling and securing the chicken wire (with MeeMaw running to help by fetching a second staple gun and staples, and helping me unjam one stapler with her kitchen knife), I crawled out from under the deck. This is a ten minute crawl, since there is virtually no clearance. It's no exaggeration to say that it's a serpentine maneuver.

When I got out and was standing there talking to MeeMaw, she asked if we could take measurements on the goat shed and the pen, in order to begin setting aside materials to get the shed ready for our spring goats. She fetched a measuring tape and paper and pen, and we worked together to take our measurements. While we were doing this, we heard an awful noise up in the woods. Cats fighting. When we came back down to the yard, we saw Biscuit chase the ugly old coon-cat up into the big pine tree out front.

I mused to MeeMaw, "If only I could get both him and Frito away from that deck, I could crawl back under there and block up that entrance hole." We didn't have enough daylight left to install the latticework tonight, but we both realized that if the hole were to be secured, we wouldn't have to worry about Frito (who is likely cumbered with kittens) crawling in there and birthing a family of hissing, biting creatures who would have to somehow be removed from under our home. But any time we move toward Frito, she runs under the deck to her sallyport.

Well, the Lord provides. While MeeMaw was attending to something in the house, I noticed both the barn cats sitting on the deck. I casually sauntered around to the end of the deck. When they saw me getting near to them, they realized they couldn't run under the end where I was (which is closest to the cubbyhole), so they simply ran out into the yard. I dived under the deck (which is no mean feat for a 49 year-old porker like me) and crawled to the hole. I took the piece of metal and tried to brace it with the cinder block (which is broken), but it was too shaky a piece of work to hold; I knew those cats could paw their way past it. So I hollered for MeeMaw, who brought me a hammer and some nails. I thought, "I can nail the sheet metal to the wooden facing around the hole, and that'll do it." No good. The steel was too tough for the nails, which bent all to hell. We debated about trying the cordless drill, but decided against it, since I wasn't sure where MeeMaw could find the drill bits. Incidentally, have you ever debated with your spouse while she's standing two inches above your face, even as you lie wrapped in slumbering poison ivy vines and fresh cat urine and listen for the whisper of brown recluse spiders strolling in the timbers above your eyes? Just wondering.

In the end, MeeMaw came up with a brilliant idea. She ran and fetched two of the square paver stones at the front of the house. I might also add that while she was making the two trips to lug those heavy stones to me, Frito was trying to get under the deck with me. I was hollering at her, and she was growling at me, and it was touch-and-go about whether or not we were gonna fight under the deck just like Biscuit and the interloper. Anyway, MeeMaw finally arrived with the paving stones. She slid them under the deck, and I pushed them ahead of me to the cubbyhole. I stood them on end like French doors, blocking the hole with their weight on the sheet metal. Then I placed the cinder block on it's end, and it wedged up underneath a joist perfectly, holding the entire thing very securely. I then crawled - weary but grateful - out of the dark little dangerous place.

When MeeMaw took my photo, we also noticed that something was stuck to my filthy jacket. Snakeskin is a reminder that spiders and cats aren't the only things that lurk beneath a Possum Cough deck.

So I finally made it inside, where I took a very long shower with a scrub brush (I don't care if the poison ivy looked dead...that stuff is like Freddy Krueger - it can't be stopped).

Now MeeMaw is a-workin' on tacos for supper, and I'm relaxing. And as I relax, I am hoping that two yeller cats are cussing me right now. Because if they are, it means my little subterranean project worked. And that's a good feeling.

Speaking of good feelings....10-10-09! Now that will be a good-feeling day for us all!

Tomorrow is the last day of Sunday School classes in this semester. The break has been nice. Next Sunday, I begin teaching "The Doctrine of Election."

Speaking of church and cats, I heard a funny story the other day. This lady, a pastor's wife, was watching her young son in the backyard. He was pretending to preach like his daddy, and his "congregation" was the family cat. The cat was sitting there, very attentive, watching and listening as the little preacher gestured and exclaimed. "Just like his daddy," the woman thought.

A few minutes later, the woman heard an uproar in the back yard. She ran to the window and was horrified to see her little boy dunking the cat into a washtub full of water. The cat was spitting and clawing and yowling, trying to eviscerate the boy. The boy was holding on for dear life, still preaching, still dunking.

The woman yanked open the back door. "Honey, no! Don't do that! That cat doesn't like water!"

The little boy looked at his mother and said, "Well, he shoulda thought of that before he joined the church."

MeeMaw made me laugh out loud tonight while we were praying. She prayed, "Father, thank you for protecting my husband while he was wallerin' around under the house..."

MeeMaw sends her love to each and every one of you, as do I. Rest well, loved ones.