You don’t want to say to anyone around these parts, “We need some rain.” You just might end up in the emergency room after being beaten with water-logged umbrellas. Rain has become a four-letter word. It seems like it’s been raining for two months.
As I write this a couple days before the 4th of July, very little, if any, corn is going to be knee high by the 4th. Much of the corn crop still hasn’t been planted. Many fields haven’t dried out enough to get equipment in them. This is not a good year to be a farmer or contractor. People who have basements that like to collect water aren’t very happy either.
This is like the weather we had when we were trying to build our house. It was a real challenge with all the rain and water that collected in the swimming hole that was supposed to be our basement. At that time I wrote: “To heck with building a house. I’m calling our builder tomorrow and tell him to pour the floor in the basement as soon as he can get a cement truck in there without burying it in the mud. Then we’ll call it done. I’ll fill the basement with water, which shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish around here. We’ll do a little landscaping, haul in a few loads of sand to spread around the hole, and quicker than you can say, “Head for cover, here comes another rain shower,” we’ll have a great outdoor swimming pool… complete with a sandy beach. The price of our land just skyrocketed. Now we have waterfront property.”
I wonder if all this rain has something to do with Sherpe’s trying to build. Ever since my brother, Arden, and his family started to put an addition on their house it’s been raining. They’ve had to endure a mud hole around their house just like we did. If you ever hear that a Sherpe is planning to build something, call all the contractors you know and tell them to say they’re too busy to take on any new jobs. If not, you might as well get ready for another 40 days of rain.
Someone asked me if I’d started building an ark. I told them no. I’ve never seen a real ark and still don’t understand what a cubit is, so it would be hard to build one. I did tell them I’ve been thinking of building a Viking ship. Those ships are in my ancestry and I’ve even seen real ones at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. The way I figure, if someone’s building an ark, they’re never going to take me with. They’d say I’m too old and not a good candidate to repopulate the world after the water recedes. They’d let me drown with all the other people and animals they didn’t want on the ark.
That’s why I need to start building a Viking ship and be prepared. Then when the Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Kickapoo Rivers begin overflowing and flooding everything, I’ll jump in my ship and sail off to Valhalla or wherever you sail to in a Viking ship when a major flood makes dry land as scarce to find as a tobacco plant in Vernon County. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up in Norway. The area where my Østrem ancestors came from is high up in the mountains. Maybe the water won’t reach them. I’ll drop anchor there and live with them until the water recedes. It’s good to have a plan.
Maybe all this rain is why we now have a female Peacock hanging out around our place. It was probably rejected by whoever’s building an ark because they had already booked a pair of Peacocks. She may have heard through the birdvine that I’m thinking of building a Viking ship. The poor bird wants to have a ride if the big flood comes.
You probably think I’m joking about having a Peacock hanging around our place. I wish I was joking, but no, it’s been here for close to a week now. Linda first noticed this big bird peeking in the sidelight window of our front door. Needless to say, it freaked her out. The next day I was startled to see it as I came around the back corner of our house. It was in the window well, looking in our basement window. It headed under the deck when it saw me. I got my camera and took pictures to prove we had a Peacock in the area. I called the Sheriff’s Department to see if they had any missing Peacock reports. There were none.
The next evening it flew up on our back deck. I chased it off and it ran into the wooded area next to the house. Two days later it was back looking in the front window again. We shooed it away. Then Linda saw a huge bird fly up toward our roof. I went out and there she stood, proud as a Peacock, on our roof. I waved my arms and shouted at her to get lost. She suddenly took off and flew right over my head and disappeared into the wooded area again. I didn’t realize they could fly like that. I’ve only seen Peacocks penned up in zoos before.
I’m sure that isn’t the end of this story. I suspect she’ll be back tonight, rain or shine, to see if I’ve started building that Viking ship.
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