Hillmomba People Problems In A Nutshell

This morning was beautiful! All sunny and bright, temps in the low 50s, a brisk feel to the breeze. I headed to town to mail the electric and trash pickup bills. More evidence (SEE?) that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom actually pays the bills she receives! I pulled over at the dry-fountain park beside the drive-thru mailbox that is apparently a black hole where expense checks to Oklahoma Ponies are concerned.

It's a shame, isn't it, that I have to drive all the way to town so that I have enough signal to make a mobile deposit in The Pony's account? Even though the #1 son told me before I left that all I had to do was connect to the Mansion's Wi-Fi. Yeah. I heard you snort. Same as me when he provided that cockamamie tidbit like he wasn't doing something the equivalent of telling our old dog Grizzly (several years deceased) how to fly a 747.

That bit of cell phone banking only took me TWO tries! I might start looking for part-time work in the technology industry! Anyhoo...I was glad to have that chore over, so I could pull away from the dry fountain, because a lady a few houses down from the Bed and Breakfast that I parked across from had been giving me the side-eye while pretending to be cleaning out her car. I hope that doesn't mean that I look like a crazy clown. I'm not used to raising suspicion all willy-nilly like some weirdo who got thrown out of the gas station chicken store a couple summers ago for taking pictures.

I stopped for my 44 oz Diet Coke, then headed for home. I was enjoying the beautiful fall weather as I rounded the corner where the sheep-watching dog is employed. Not there today. Nor were the sheep. Must be in a different field, away from the road.

CRACK!!!

WITNH (What In The Not-Heaven) was THAT?

I thought I had been shot at! That a brick had been dropped off a highway overpass onto my windshield! That a derelict dump truck had propelled a rock of 3-inch minus at my T-Hoe with its un-flapped tire! It was all I could do not to jerk T-Hoe back and forth across the road like Farmer H on a normal day of driving.

Up on T-Hoe's roof, where there is unfixed hail damage (though we got the insurance payment for it), among the rails of the luggage rack, I heard skittering. That was unsettling. I heard it twice. In two different sessions. Then nothing.

Sweet Gummi Mary! I had no idea what was going on. But thankfully, there was no star crack in my windshield. I figured I would look up on the roof by standing on the running board when I got to EmBee to pick up the mail. It was about a mile and a half away. All the while, I was wondering what was up on my roof. Had a limb fallen down? Did a bird hit me and flop up there, injured? Was a squirrel or possum on a limb that gave way? Because I was right under a tree when that non-mark-leaving CRACK happened. I made up my mind that I was NOT touching an injured critter. It could lay there and start stinking, and wait for Farmer H to remove it.

Once I had stopped in the road beside EmBee's mailbox condo, I didn't want to look. But I HAD to look. So I got out and turned around.

Well. Wasn't THAT anticlimactic? Looks like a hickory nut had fallen off a tree and hit T-Hoe's windshield as I drove by. I was only going 20 mph. Or LESS! Because that's a 90-degree curve right there by the sheep field. Those hickory nuts sure do fall hard! Of course, they're not in a soft cushiony green cover like a walnut. No siree, Bob! Hickory nuts are in a WOODEN cover. Looks like this one split apart, the other parts skittered under T-Hoe's luggage rails and fell off, and the nut and this section got wedged.

Whew! That was a relief! It made for a pretty picture. But I almost needed a defibrillator for the initial shock.