I know about ‘haint blue’ paint. My porch ceiling is painted blue.
No mirrors in the front room.
I burn sage regular like.
I would have lots of garlic but the deer ate it all. Damned Italian deer!!
(;))
I remember the first time we rolled past Gilroy California - it was about 730 in the morning, and the sun was warming up the ground and it smelled all garlicy … I had the worst craving for pizza!
Isn’t the American indiginous ‘sage’ for smudging not the same as culinary sage? Does culinary sage scare off spirits as well as sagebrush?
I order sage brush that’s tied up in neat little bundles. You light it and it smokes like crazy.
My understanding it you need to walk counter clockwise from corner to corner in each room.
The old part of my house (the original cabin) needs it at least 4 times a year.
I’ve never sprinkled sage, the spice around. I do have sage incense I burn occasionally.
Back to my tale:
We had a root grow into a pipe that carried grey water out to the perc field. Mr.Wrekker was out of state so I had to call Mr. Otis an old plumber. He dug around and finally got to the right spot and decided he would need a ditch-witch and would come back the next day. We walk up the yard close to the old well. And he smelled the rotten egg smell. He says 'Oh, Ms. Wrek that’s not a water well, it may be an old septic tank or a natural gas well."
Oh, really. Well I’ll be danged.
This is oil well country. There are 100s of capped wells in the woods. They’ve not produced in years.
It was not good oil to begin with. When the wells were being tapped natural gas was considered a waste product. If the gas started coming up the well would be capped off and they would schooch over and drill a new one. Think small holes going as deep as the geological guys told them.
I think my white mist has just been explained. It was Swamp gas!
I want this old well or septic tank moved. Dug out. I want it gone.
It’s just too close to my house for my comfort.
When Mr.Wrekker comes home I press him about it.
I can’t live around stinky, eerie Swamp gas emanating from this long buried thing.
I insist. Mr.Wrekker is not happy, but he agrees.
Next chapter: “The old well is opened.”
I do hope the house is at a higher elevation than this uncapped pipe. The idea that the babies’ sandbox was practically on top of it is horrifying!
Natural gas is a big thing now. Don’t be surprised if you have geologists swarming the area, looking for those pockets!
Do you own mineral rights to the land?
We won’t even talk about fracking! acckkkk!
~VOW
We do own the mineral rights.
A company came out and offered all kinda crap. We let them do their tests.
Alas, I will not be singing “Ol’Beck’s a millionaire”
How do you get the Siamezers inside the hellmouth you call home?
The Siamese cats are surprisingly okay with it. The old part is eerie. I never go in there after dark. The cats like it.
Don’t y’all all wanna come to a Dopefest here? We could make a pool and pay out to any one who can stay all night in the old part.
Sounds fun don’t it?
’Hellmouth’–I like it. New name for Wrek Estates.
I’ll be the first to sign up!
Mr VOW joined a prospecting club years ago. He’s had several metal detectors through the ages, and they are good, dirty fun. A prospector with a metal detector has a knee guard on one knee, and a disreputable digging tool in the hand not holding the detector.
The gizmo beeps, the prospector takes a knee and digs. Coins are always good. Bullets make conversation pieces. Unfortunately, most beeps are for LEAVERITE, as in “leave 'er right there.” Bobby pins, paperclips, guts to ballpoint pens, and the ever popular pull tab!
~VOW
No "bobby-dazzlers’?
I’m thinking of digging out the old metal detector. The kids might like that.
Just tell them you are looking for “Pirate Buried Treasure!”
~VOW
Do you still have the old dentures? Where does one keep decrepit dentures one has found in one’s leaf pile?
Nellie, the Sheriff took them for evidence. :dubious:
Mr.Wrekker decides the old well will be dispatched in the fall. He has access to heavy equipment(remember the fish farm debacle, he rented the equipment for that).
He wants to be done before deer season starts so he hops ‘to’ one cool fall day in early October.
He has a coupla guys lined up to help him.
I implore him not to disturb the stone pet grave marker and my holly bush. He makes no promises. I told him to at least give me a heads up, I’d like to try and save the holly and transplant it.
The back-hoe breaks the ground and a mere 5ft down he hits pipe. Lots of rusty pipe. Mostly corroded and falling in pieces. It was definatly oil well pipe. The smell from that open ground is awful.
I’m convinced we live in a place that should be designated a federally funded clean up site or at least condemned for human habitation. But, yet Ol’beck has built a stupid home here. Another example of my notorious bad luck.
After the first day of digging Mr.Wrekker says the holly bush needs to be transplanted the next morning. He has all the pipe dug out. He was gonna move over and see what’s under that marker. I’m thinking best to get it all over in one dig. And my troubles will be over.
We have a mess of pipe and nasty dirt that has to disposed of. My plan to get this away from my house might have been a bit over-ambitious.
Might have been safer not to disturb my personal nuclear(;)) waste dumping site. :smack:
More tomorrow…stay tuned.
Keep in mind, the old lady’s head is still AWOL.
Am I going to need to sleep with a nightlight after the last chapter? I scare easily.
I’ll give you a ‘trigger warning’ nellie. 
TRIGGER ALERT
This is the part where you close your eyes and cover your ears, if you scare easily. Forewarned is Forearmed. I always say!
That next day I was up and out early to save my Holly bush. I transplanted it into a half barrel. I thought it might live a long time in that barrel as it had a small root ball. (I was right, it still lives in the barrel)
Mr.Wrekker aimed underneath the stone/rock marker and pulled it up. A bunch of rooty/stringy matter came up with it. That thing had been in the ground a long time. Only 1/4 of it was above ground. It was about 4 feet long. Mainly heavy aggregated hand mixed concrete and one large natural stone. Someone intended this to stay in the ground.
Mr.W took another scoop and dropped in on the ground. He stopped the back hoe and got down to look in the hole so I went to poking around in the dirt he just dropped. I had my metal detector. It was bleeping like crazy. Lots of old rusty metal pieces.
Another burn barrel. What? Under the rock thingy? That doesn’t make sense.
Mr.Wrekker calls us over and we look down in the hole. Holy crap it smelled awful. Lots of metal bits and wood pieces that looked burned black.
Oh, shit. We’ve uncovered what was probably the sight of a long ago *Out-house *.
We sent one of the guys for a bag of garden lime we had in the barn.
Mr.Wrekker thinks he’s seen enough. He has several yards of dirt from his pond excavating. The lime goes in and it’s filled in with new dirt. He even replaced the stone marker.
The old innards of the out-house was intriguing. I got a hoe and dug around in it. Knowing full well it was long ago poop matter.
There were several hard pieces I pulled over to the side.
Mr.W was rushing to get the stinky dirt away from there so I quit poking. He went to scooping it up into his trailer. I got my hard pieces over to where I could reach them with the water house.
I was spraying them with water and I could tell it was whitish in color. It was 3 pieces.
Oh, lord. It was bone. I stopped spraying. And waved at Mr.Wrekker and the guys to come see.
I guess you know what I found. Yep. Old Lady French’s head in three pieces. We were standing there looking down on this poor woman’s head. No teeth. I swear it looked like hair was still on it. We decided that might be some kinda of plant material, tho’.
I tried to be respectful and solemn. But, I had the giggles.
I don’t know if I was so freaked out and the laughing was a relief valve? I just don’t know. 
Mr.Wrekker got the Sheriff out here.
I’m not laughing anymore. Had to answer a mountain of questions. It seems it’s real serious business when you find a human skull in an old ‘crapper’ in your back yard.
The consensus was: Frenchy, the not so law abiding Son, found his dead Mothers head. To keep prying eyes away from his moonshining operation (and maybe to protect his imbecile Sister) he threw Ma down the hole in the out-house. Tore apart the wooden structure and threw it down as well and any thing else he could find.
Then he made his stone/concrete marker. A way to honor his Mother, I guess.
The same woman his Sister most likely killed. The same woman animals had dismembered and eaten.
The same woman who gave birth to these 2 lovely children.
We can only hope our own children honor us in such a way.
Head in the ‘crapper’ :eek:
**THE END**.If not for the fact that it would have given everything away, “Head in the Crapper” would have been a great thread title.
He was a kind, considerate son. He put up a marker!
He should have written something on the marker, though.
“Here, I sit, brokenhearted…”
~VOW