Long post because I am talkative today

Let's see...

Sweet potatoes - planted.

Potatoes - planted.
Tomatoes - awaiting a little for the weather to decide what it is going to do.
Seeds, tons of them - awaiting a little also.
Driveway Azaleas - weeded, mulched and budding.
Azaleas under front window - weeded, mulched and budding. Got to love them!

Gone to Lowe's again. Bought 120 stepping blocks (99 cents each - good special price) for the patio under our private deck. Used cupon and had an added $10 bucks off.

Smart old farts.

And also bought some Impatiens, Petunias and one ornamental grass with a mean name: "Calamagrostis Acutifolia". Purdy stuff, though. I think.

My first idea was to have something like this, let me show you.

(Is this picture crooked, or are my eyes messing with me?)

But have you ever seen the prices on big, HUGE, planter like these? Yewww... I'm not rich. Cannot afford them. So, the grass (which is not the one on the picture) will go on the ground, on the left side of the driveway.

Today I am going to plant the seeds of my funny flower. That's how I call this plant.

It's real name is Cleome, and this is last year's plants on the side of the back deck. I did not know what kind of seed I had (someone had given it to me), and only planted two or three of them. I should have filled the whole planter that goes along the side of the deck. These plants grow tall enough to be seen from the top of the deck, and bloom all summer long!

And they produce tons, I mean tons (!) of seeds. Which, by the way, I saved a good quantity to spread everywhere. hehehe...

They have a peculiar smell, which is not good, but not bad either. But they do look neat.

***

Finally, I have a long story to tell. Don't say I did not warn you!

We have a huge oak tree right in front of our house. Hubby told me it must be over 200 years old. And there I was, thinking, wondering what that tree has "seen" throughout it's life.

One thing I know for sure. It has seen an awful accident, and a corpse laying down at it's "feet".

It was around three o'clock in the morning. Four years ago. We were asleep. All of a sudden, we are awaken by the roar of a motor, a screetching sound and a nasty - nasty - crash! And, when we thought it was over, the crash continued for a few seconds and ended with something large hitting the ground, together with a huge explosion!!

My first thought was that the oak tree was coming down - for some reason - and I remember that I jumped on top of Hubby, thinking it would hit the house. I wanted to cover his body with mine and protect him. Delayed reaction, I know, because the crash was over and the bang had already happened. But the intentions were good, right?

Silence. Lights out.

Hubby opens his eyes and I get off of him.

"What was THAT?"

We listen and some voices come from a distance. Two people talking. We could not understand what they were saying.

We look out the window and, across the road, down on the bushes, we see lights. Stationary lights as of a car. And we realise that we are out of power.

We get dressed in a hurry, Hubby gets the phone to call the police and I go outside, with the flashlight. The power pole that was across the road is down, wires spread all over the place.

And then, someone starts screaming. A very high pitched voice, screaming for help.

I put the light down on the wires and jump them all the way to the other side of the road. Yes, I know.  Now I do. I did not then. I know that one should NEVER do what I did, because those wires could have been alive and if so, bye-bye dumb Miriam. But, they were not, thank goodness.

When I get there, I see that our mail box is also gone and whoever is there, is really deep at the bottom. The terrain slopes down and the whole area is covered - I mean covered - with brush, trees, a torn barbed wire fence, broken small trees, broken large things, and so on. Besides that, the power pole that is sheared off at about 4 feet above the ground is laying across that whole mess, towards the road.  There is no way I can even see down there!

I get as close as I can, and tell the person, which by now I think is a woman, that we had called for help and that I could not find a way to get there by myself. I do it by screaming back, because the person is very loud.

"Help! Help! My BABY! My BAAAABYYYYYYY!! He is not breathing! HEEEEEELP!"

It was horrible! The feeling of helplessness in a situation like this is terrible! I simply could not reach them. I wanted to cry, thinking of a baby and that poor woman so desperate!

Hubby comes out too, after having to, first, give directions to the Paramedics, because they did not have a clue as to where we are located! The disadvantages of living in the country. We looked all over, trying to find a spot where we could cross and get to the car. There was no way. Not for two "paisanos" like us.

At this point, the person that is screaming is no longer a woman. It is a man, and he is mad! And he starts cussing!!! He calls us - I suppose - all the bad names that were available.

"Get down here, you mother-fuckers, you God-damned people, you sons of bitches, you miserable bastards, you fuckers, you dick suckers..." And so on. And again! His voice is graspy and scary!

Whatever bad word I did not know yet, I learned that night.

The Paramedics arrive. Together with the Police and Firefighters. And they come equipped. All dressed up with tough garments, high boots and helmets. And ropes, and hooks and other stuff. They have big lights illuminating the whole area. They cut the barbed wire here and there.  And they go in. They disappear down the hill.

We wait. We prayed for that baby.

After a while, the paramedics come up with a gurney. And a body. All covered up. And they lay it under the oak tree.  

A man is brought up right after, and taken to the ambulance. Alive and unrully. Very much so!

As the Paramedics seemed to be getting ready to go, we inform them that we thought there were three people there. You see, we first heard a conversation. Then we heard that woman. Then we heard that man. Then we saw two people taken from the accident. We were concerned about the baby. Or who?

The Paramedics and the Police comb the area, including our front yard, in search of a third person. Nothing!

We insist that there were three people there, and a cop asks the guy in the ambulance. He tells them that they were three, but it was "no damn woman, it was my other son!" ... ??...

They still search more and nothing. They clean up, pack their equipment and go. The body is taken away. The car is pulled out and also taken. The electrical company is next to come and fix the power pole.

When the day comes, everything is back to normal. We are exhausted and confused.

Later that morning, a young man comes to the scene of the accident. We learn that he was part of the team of First Responders and he tells us what had happened.

There were three people in the car. A man with a nasty disposition (and mouth!), and his two sons. They had gone out the night before and got stupidly drunk. The young man that died was driving. He was the baby, we were concerned about. He hit that power pole at 85 miles per hour!!!

He was not wearing a seat belt and the car, after hitting the mail box, the fence and the power pole, flipped sideways a few times and ended up on the top part of his body, at the bottom of the slope.

The one that was screaming all the time was the old man, the father. The man caused problems all the way to the the hospital and there too, cussing horribly at every one. To the point that his wounds were treated and he was sent home!

The other son was later found asleep AT HOME. He had left the scene of the accident just like that.

Our house is to the left (of course) of the picture. The new pole in place, and Hubby inspecting the area.



The car was down there, past where Hubby is.

Learning about that man, and the son that left them to their own luck, we wondered for a long time about what would have happened if we had managed to get to the car, and tried to help them. Would we have been sued for not being able to save his son's life? Would we have been blamed for flipping the car the wrong way, when we wanted to free his son?

Scary.

The old oak tree must have seen lots of things in it's life. This sad accident was surely one of them.


Lova ya!