Fruit in the Attic

Today it was Jessica, Gerald, and myself holding down the fort at Melrose. Luckily, only 4/8 tours went out, so Jessica and I only had to do two each--instead of four. Even though I only had to do two tours, I still kind of ran out of steam on the last one. I meant to say that since the attic is quite hot, the family would store extra clothes and furnishings up there, while storing fruits, vegetables, and meat in the basement. Instead I said, "Since the attic is hotter than the rest of the house, they would store their fruits, vegetables, and meat there." Then I thought about what I said, realized my mistake, and tried to correct it. :-) I'm scheduled for a four tour day tomorrow, but then I'll get a little break on Thursday when I'll be at the Johnson House all day. Well, I'm off to go show Gerald the way to get to the William Johnson House from his house--he has to work their tomorrow and has no idea where it is. I think we're going to go to Smoothie King afterwards, so that should be fun.

Wasp Adventures

Look at the cute little turtle that came ambling up the driveway here at Routhland yesterday! I don't know where he was heading, but he was making pretty good time for a turtle.

Today was what you would call a crazy day. It started out as a nice peaceful day off. I was planning to go into work to help with the scavenger hunt for the Junior Rangers, but that wasn't until 10:30, so I was looking forward to sleeping in. However, Angie called at 8:30 this morning in quite a panic. Ranger Sharon was still sick, and even though all of the other rangers were there, Angie still didn't have enough people to run camp and keep the park open. We all know I'd do anything for Angie, so I went ahead and worked all day. It was fine except that by the end of the day, I was feeling a little irritable. This six-year-old kid, who was literally five feet tall, named Nathaniel, went on my 3:00 tour with his family and was a little out-of-control. After listening to him play his harmonica outside the visitor center for about 40 minutes after the tour, I was about ready to pull my ears off--but I didn't. I just kept reminding myself that a full day of overtime pay is a good thing. :-)

As if things weren't crazy enough at Melrose today, we had some serious wasp issues. If it's not birds, it's wasps--isn't that how it always goes? It seems that all of the wasps that have been hiding out in obscure wasp nests chose today to come out and attack people. We had a Junior Ranger emergency when little Madison got stung by one. Tim didn't want to deal with the situation, so he brought her into the visitor center and told her that Ranger Tiffany would take care of her. Thanks, Tim. Thankfully she wasn't crying and/or screaming, and Ranger Melissa soon came to the rescue. We found some sting relief wipes to clean off the wound--which was on Madison's stomach and looked painful--and once we wiped it off and gave her some candy and water, she seemed fine.

Since today was supposed to be my day off, I had planned to meet Sister Wesselman at the Castle at Dunleith for lunch so that she could give me the low down on taking care of her kids, Abby and Bailey, which I will be doing later this week. Unfortunately, I realized that my lunch break wouldn't be sufficient time to enjoy lunch at the Castle, which is a really nice, formal restaurant, so we met downtown at the Marketplace Cafe instead. Ranger Melissa came along with me, and the three of us had a really good time.

I'm going to be working for the next nine days straight, because my days off are changing in July, but it will be worth it because on July 4, Angie and I are going to take a road trip to Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-dish--weird, I know!), Louisiana, to visit the Cane River National Historical Park and see fireworks over Cane River Lake! I made hotel reservations for us at this cool little place called Church Street Inn, which should be a really fun place to stay. Good times are coming in the future! Ranger Jessica told me that on Friday she wants to make me a birthday cake from her new book called "Naughty Novelty Cakes." Thankfully, I was able to tell her that we've already got the cake department covered because my mom is going to have a cake delivered. Thank you for saving me from the naughty novelty cakes, Mom!

Sunny Rain

This afternoon it has been raining outside, but the sun in shining--and it didn't do it just once for a second like you sometimes see, but it's been doing it on and off all afternoon. There are dark clouds around, which is where the rain is coming from, but the sun is still shining. Crazy, crazy weather.

Speaking of crazy, church was really funny today. :-) It's the same religion, but a whole different ballgame down here than at home! I was asked by a member of the bishopric two weeks ago to speak on June 24 about the importance of keeping a journal. He told me to plan on speaking for 8 minutes, then he pulled out an envelope from his pocket, wrote my name on it, and stuffed it in with some other papers he was carrying. Well, I think that the envelope never again saw the light of day. Sister Wesselman told me that Brother Wesselman was going to be speaking today too, but then when I went up on the stand before sacrament meeting, with my talk all ready to go, there were three other people up there who were supposedly speaking today too. The only difference between them and Brother Wesselman and me is that their names were on the program and ours weren't! The man who had asked me to speak said to me, "Uh oh, did I ask you to speak too?" Anyway, Brother Wesselman and I ended up not speaking in church today. The bishopric person who asked me to speak wondered if I can give my talk another Sunday, but today was really my last "for sure" Sunday that I know I'll have off of work. The schedule is going to switch around a bit in July, so while I imagine that I'll still get to go to church sometimes this summer, I won't know when until the beginning of each week. I was also supposed to teach primary today, but there were only four kids there today, and none of them were in the age group I was to teach, so I got put in the nursery with this little kid who wouldn't take his binky out of his mouth or even respond to anything I did or said. The joys of a small ward. :-) It was a little different than when I've spent time in the nursery at home.

I had to go into work this afternoon to do some overtime because not only are we short on staff, but Ranger Sharon got really sick yesterday and wasn't able to come in today. So it was good that I was able to both go to church and come in and help out at the park. It will be good to have a rest from giving tours tomorrow though!

The Alligator Hunters

The alligators were indeed out again down at St. Catherine's Creek last night! Tim and I saw three gators in the exact same spot where we saw three gators last year (they're probably the same ones). As we were walking along down by the swamp, we heard "Plop! Plop! Plop!" into the water--and then we saw three pairs of the little, beaty eyes poking up out of the water. Then the little guy that you see there at the left started cruising downstream, so we got a better look at him there on the surface of the water (you can click on the picture if you want to see a bigger version of it). I used the zoom on my camera to take that picture, so we really weren't as close to the gators as it appears. Tim wanted to throw rocks at the gators to make them mad and get them to come out of the water for better picture taking, but I told him that since gators have been clocked at running about 15 mph for 30 yards on land (I heard rumors of a 35 mph alligator, but that sounds a little too fast), it probably wasn't the best idea. Thankfully he agreed. It was really pretty down along the swamp--in the old cotton fields. There's quite a bit of water out in the cotton fields right now because every spring they channel the Mississippi River in and flood the entire area, which brings some good nutrients for the soil. There were tons of big birds out there, and it was fun just to be out there and enjoy all of the cool swamp life.

Today was a busy day at Melrose. I had to give three house tours, which after yesterday's four tours, seemed like quite a bit. With Carla gone now, we're really short on people, so I'll need to go in tomorrow afternoon after church to work some overtime. They're in the process of trying to hire a couple of other people right now, but the FBI has to do background checks on the incoming folks, and they're not being too speedy with that. Hopefully we can survive until we get some extra help. Tonight Nathan, Kate, Tim, and I are going to barbecue ribs and have a good ol' Southern feast complete with potatoes, coleslaw, baked beans, and apple pie with ice cream. Mmmm! Then we'll finish watching "Lost" Season 1 on DVD.

Cornish Game Hen

Today Tim and I got the unexpected (yet always hoped for) Friday invitation to have lunch at Routhland with Miss Betty. She has her cook, Miss Big, come every so often on Friday to cook a good ol' Southern feast. Miss Big's menu today consisted of Cornish game hen (which I had never tried before), some awesome stuffing, beans and potatoes, corn on the cob, and some applie pie right out of the oven. Mmmmmm, tasty! It was totally delicious. At first the Cornish hen kind of creeped me out--because it was like eating an entire chicken, but I finally picked my way through the bones and found some good meat. Lunch was a good break to have because today is one of the four-tour days which wear me out. By the end of the day, all of my tours start melting together, and I can't remember what I have/haven't said already. Then sometimes I just totally space out--like on my 2:00 tour today I meant to say, "All of the furniture in this room is original," but instead I said, "All of the furniture in this room is real." Then the people looked at me, I realized what I said, and we all broke out laughing. One of the ladies on that tour was American Idol winner Carrie Underwood's 8th grade history teacher!!

Yesterday afternoon there was a show on the Travel Channel called something like "Investigating the Unexplained." They had a feature about the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana--where Mom and I went for Halloween last October! It is supposedly the most haunted house in America. On the TV show they were talking about all of the ghosts who live there--my favorite of which is Chloe--the slave ghost who steals people's earrings. I was hoping she would steal my earrings when Mom and I were there, but she didn't. It was fun to watch the show after having been through the house.

Today is Ranger Carla's last day with us. :-( She's the one who has been here on a month-long detail from the Selma-Montgomery Trail in Alabama. Melissa from Fort Sumter got extended for another month, which we were hoping would happen with Carla too, but unfortunately she has to return back to work on Sunday. She's been a really big help, and she and her husband are very nice people, so we'll miss them here.

This afternoon Tim wants to go walking down at St. Catherine's Creek to work off some of the Cornish game hen we had for lunch. It should be fun, but the last time I went there with him (last summer), we saw some alligators, which I could do without ever seeing in the wild again. So I'll keep a sharp eye.