Times like these I'm reminded of the joys of country living. We're just past the manure-spreading season, so we can breathe freely again. Last spring we spent a beautiful weekend afternoon eating grilled food out on the deck with friends; birds were singing and a breeze was blowing and a manure spreader was making aromatic circles on the field just below our hillside. Ah, that fresh country air! Smells like money, says the farmer.
But that's not the issue today. Today's issue is rain. Rain is good; rain makes the mayapples pop up and the grass grow (although I wouldn't mind if it did a little less of that at the moment), but rain also makes our neolithic telephone lines so full of static that it's impossible to make phone calls, and our dial-up internet connection becomes virtually useless.
It has now been raining on and off for four days, with a generous hiatus yesterday afternoon, during which we all sat outside and absorbed all the sunshine we could capture. One or two days of light rain don't do much, but when it rains steadily like this for days on end, our phone lines become unreliable. Cell phones are always unreliable out here, thanks to our excellent location nestled between hills with no cell tower in sight. Cable? Forget it; that's for the civilized world. We live in Bedrock, where neighbors communicate by tying together tin cans with string. Not only is there no cable, but there's no broadcast television reception either, thanks to the aforementioned excellent location, which was made for sattelite TV.
But it's not all bad. Inaccessibility has its advantages. No phone solicitors, for instance, no blogging, and no whiny e-mails from students demanding deadline extensions, which leaves plenty of time for sitting out on the deck and watching the manure dry.
No comments:
Post a Comment