Don't you just love wild and crazy temperature fluctuations? Right now I have a fan aimed at the lower portion of my body and my feet are frozen ... but everything above that is finally comfortable. I got into the car this afternoon to head to the cabin and when I turned it on, the thermometer told me it was 103 degrees! Ok ... it was in the direct sunlight, but by the time the temps evened out, it was still reading 91 degrees. Wow. You know, in the summer and fall, I totally win. The temperatures up here are generally 5 degrees cooler than those in Omaha. Yup ... I watch it happen every time I drive. In the winter and spring? the temperatures are generally 5 degrees cooler than those in Omaha. Totally kicks my butt.
A friend of mine from Sigourney saw a brown wooly bear and the old wives' tale says that means we'll have a mild winter. Another friend commented that the Farmer's Almanac said we'd have a very cold winter. I am not sure which piece of fiction will happen, but one of them will be right this year. Speaking of tall tales, I was talking to Max and said something about the date tomorrow. He commented that it was the day to balance an egg. Ok, what? Well, another old wives' tale says that on the equinox, you can balance an egg and it won't fall over. Uh huh ... ok.
I've never been a sucker for those, which is funny because I'm a total sucker for conspiracy theories. If there's a hint of truth to it, I have no reason to not believe that the entire story isn't true. Oh .. I can work myself up into a frenzy if I try.
My father was always lying to me. Well ... that's a little harsh. He told tall tales ... just to see if he could get me going. He also had a great poker face and never gave anything away. There came a point when I was in high school that I realized that the more calm his face got, the taller the tale.
You see, there was a time that he completely took Mom, me and Carol out. He and Jim had driven up to the cabin. When they got home, there was a dent in the front of the van and they had a cooler filled with meat. Let's see ... it had to have been a Tuesday evening that they returned home. When they brought the meat inside to the freezer, mom started asking questions. That was the day we nearly sold Bell's Dell.
Dad told us that when they pulled into the driveway up here, they opened the gate and were confronted by a wild boar. It snarled and snorted at them. He and Jim dashed back into the van and tried honking their horn at the boar, flashing the van lights, anything to get it to run off into the hillside.
By this time, Mom's eyes were huge and she was beginning to panic. She had a techni-color picture of this event happening in her mind.
Anyway, the boar wouldn't move from the lane, so Dad started driving toward it. And then, it happened, the boar charged the van and rammed it. That stunned him, but he got up and was completely maddened, so he charged the van again and again. Finally Dad went after the boar with the van and managed to kill it. He and Jim had plenty of time, so they skinned it, dressed it and brought the meat home.
Dad didn't back off this story no matter how Mom pressed him. It was late and we went to bed. Dad got up early the next morning for Prayer Breakfast and was out of the house long before anyone else was up.
We all got up a little later and poor Jim was toast. He was alone now and Mom had him in her sights. Dad wasn't there to back him up. She went after him with a vengeance and it didn't take long for him to reveal that Dad had hit and killed a deer on the way in to the cabin. They had put it into the back, brought it in, dressed it and that was the meat that we had.
It was Mom's turn. Dad came home for lunch at noon, just as he did every day. Mom had lunch ready for him and informed him that she had made some calls up here to the family that had originally sold Bell's Dell to us. She was beginning the process of selling the land because she would NOT take her children back to a place where there were wild boar that might threaten their safety. For heaven's sake, we all played in the hillside.
Mom had forced all of us out of the house for this conversation. She knew that we wouldn't be able to maintain any type of a poker face. It didn't take long. Poor Dad was trapped. He could either admit to his tall tale and take her wrath or he would have to hold on to the lie and sell Bell's Dell. A bit chagrined, he took his punishment.
This story is one of our favorite memories ... I can't believe I haven't told it until now!!!
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