In Which There is Mycological Adventure, Flooding, and Retreat

"How odd," I thought, clearly at my best on a day during which I did not once put on proper pants, "Some sort of piece of nerf wedged in my lawn. And what is that on top?" So I pick it up, and pull it out of its... bizarre underground sheath, revealing spongy and definitely not-nerf matter. It's a mushroom. A mushroom that dries to the cheerful reddish color and consistency of some kinds of nerf. And I touched it. Eww.

After washing my hands, I did a bit of research. The horrible things are Elegant Stinkhorns, and they are harmless, just unpleasant in just about every other way. That, children, is why we don't touch nature, even when it's pretending to be nerf material.

Add that to yesterday's dead-squirrel-palooza(don't ask), seeing a fox in the middle of town, and the knowledge that earwigs like to infiltrate the basement, and I kind of feel like I may have to defend myself against Nature since there's so much of it here.

But I also have duties, because part of living here means that I must water and mow. "Okay," I say, "Let's start off easy. Watering is easy. I water in Albuquerque all the time."

But watering is not easy. It is a lie.

First, there is the matter of the shutoff. This is an old house, and the uncle who owns it, bless him, has a lot to take care of. One of those things is how the water outside in the back does not turn off properly and so must be shut off each time with the valve in the creepy concrete root cellar in the basement. To turn it on and off, one must either be quite tall or standing on a chair, which is an adventure of its own.

Then there is the matter of not being familiar with the sprinklers, which means that in trying to place them well, I end up drenched. But I was watering the front and feeling pretty proud of myself.

Of course, shortly after, one of the two cats I brought to keep me company starts acting as if something is very distressing. The noise of the water, I figure. Whatever. Cats are weird. After he tried to trip me down the stairs three times, I realize that the kitchen door out to the front is open and that means that the uber-soaking sprinkler I turned on is dumping water in through the screen door.

So I am retreating into the house. Mowing the lawn will have to be another battle, because I concede this skirmish. I am lucky to have had many people here over the last few days while I move in who bought me food and used tools, but clearly, I need to put on my war face now that I'm alone.

And I haven't even started the school thing.