”When it rains, it pours.”
That’s what the old folks say. Of course, that’s not MY saying. What do I know about being old? I’ll only be 70 the 26th of this month. I’m just a mere lad – even if it IS the second time around.
But, getting back to that rain; what I was referring to was the way I whittle away for weeks, piling up stick roosters, then along comes one of my regular customers and pretty well cleans me out.
I’m not complaining in the least, mind you; selling them is why I make them. I just can’t ever get used to the idea that sales come in bunches like bananas. I get several made and I get lazy. Then I feel like I really have to get busy after a visit from Rosalyn Fabianke or some other such a real patron of my art (well, that’s what I call it, anyhow).
I had a pretty good rooster stock until I stopped cutting out roosters and started making miniature dulcimores for a Florence lady who wanted 10 to put in the laps of her cornhusk dolls.
I now have eight of the 10, but must get back to my roosters, too. I did make three small ones the past two days, but another lady bought all three and one more. No rest for the weary, I suppose. And I even work up a sweat these days just sitting in the carport and whittling. Well, it still beats covering ballgames and political speakings for the paper.
OTHER KINDS OF RAIN
We haven’t had nearly as much rain recently as we were having earlier in the spring. Of course, you Archway readers knew we Wouldn’t, didn’t you? Remember, I told you the last new moon was a dry one. It was turned in a position to hold just a few drops of water, though. Well, the last new moon (on June 22) was turned almost straight up and down. You know what that means, don’t you? It looked like this:
Now, there’s no way you could get that moon to hold a drop of water if you held the hose on it all night. That last drop that things are always good to has dropped out. Better get ready to get that lawn sprinkler to going. You gardeners can expect a big water bill again, of course.
A decade or so ago a state official was meeting with the Red Bay City Council and he told them that we had the highest per capita use of water of any city in the state. That, of course, was due to the fact that we have so many gardeners.
At that time gardening was one of the few hobbies one could engage in besides hunting and fishing. It still hasn’t changed an awful lot, maybe.
We do just about all have TV’s now, I suppose. That’s a hobby most of us would be better off without, I’m thinking, though. It is good to be able to get a few news headlines now and then. That’s about all you get from the tube, except pictures now and then.
Back to the rainfall, I might report that for June so far, we’ve only had a little under four inches. We had that much in one rain back in the spring. I’m afraid, now, that I might be calling it a little short of the actual fall, but I’m not too far from what the Department of Agriculture reports for the state. My reading is 3.8 inches.
If we don’t have a couple of frog-stranglers the next day or so (this is being written June 28) it will be the driest month. But just you wait till July’s over!
I hope to meet you over the fingerboard of a hot dulcimore soon now. July will be another busy month – for both pickin’ and whittlin’. More later on both.
