defending the homestead | Minivans Are Hot

Do you know what responsible adults do? They stay home, skip the beach on a gorgeous Sunday, and do respectable things like mow the lawn and trim the hedges.

That’s what responsible adults do and that’s what we did today. Despite a ridiculously amazing day and more than one invitation to head to the beach, we waved our hands proudly and said “No thanks. We are going home to do responsible stuff.”

So it was that after church we made our way home where we were greeted by a ready meal in the Crock Pot (responsible). Apparently it’s Star Wars week ’round these parts so a marathon was playing on TV. I set up a picnic for the kids in front of the TV because not only am I responsible, but I’m also fun.

Oh yes I am.

After a bit of relaxing, we put on our super responsible hard work caps and set to cleaning up the yard. A few days ago we discovered that our leaf blower and electric hedge trimmer had been stolen out of our garage (awesometown) so I grabbed a pair of manual hedge trimmers and spent the next two hours painstakingly clipping away at the bushes.

I’m typing this post with my chin because I can’t feel or move my forearms.

As I worked at taming the hedges that were slowly choking the life out of our house, Lee hopped on the mower and cut back our jungle of a yard. My, what a respectable pair we made, cleaning up the outside of our home, making it a haven for all who come to visit.

(Please come visit us.)

(Seriously. Florida is awesome.)

(And our hedges are trimmed.)

On one side of our house, not only had the hedges grown to ~~embarrassing~~ impressive heights, but so had the weeds. I think at one point I may have cut down Jack’s Beanstalk.

As I leaned in to pull out a rather pesky weed I felt something prick hard into my skin. I thought it was a branch so I moved to the side, but the stinging grew more intense and then I realized that I wasn’t near any branches and I looked on my shoulder and saw a wasp the size of my head staring at me.

He was all, “Wad up, yo? I’m stingin’ yo a…”

I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence because I started to scream and swat and run high legged through the yard and the wasp was screaming too, probably because I was screaming, but maybe also because I was hitting him. After he flew away I ran a few more circles around the yard for good measure and to send a message to all the other wasps that I was not to be messed with.

It’s at this point that I began to wonder what the neighbors must have been thinking.

Oh, and for the record, wasp stings hurt. A lot. If you tell your kids they don’t hurt, you’re lying.

Anyway, back to the hedges. I picked the trimmer back up and snapped away at the bushes with a vengence. Anger motivated me to push past the pain and trim the heck out of those branches. Then the kids came screeching around the corner.

“SNAKE!”

I had just been stung by a wasp so I had no interest in dealing with another of God’s creatures.

“IN THE GARAGE!”

“Tell your Dad,” I said through clenched teeth.

A few minutes later, the mower stops. We all remember what happens when Lee feels the need to defend the homestead from predators, right? If you haven’t read the story I will give you a short, two-word synopsis:

Possom. Crowbar.

So I wasn’t surprised when Sloan came running around the corner with wide eyes. “Dad needs you,” he said.

My husband wanted me to help him catch a four foot snake. I felt it would be more helpful if I just took pictures of him capturing it. Then the kids and I screamed endlessly as he chased it down and hacked at it with the passion of a man defending his family against the greatest of beasts.

That’s when our brand new neighbor came running across the street. And when I say brand new, I mean they moved in yesterday. Apparently screaming women and crying children is classified as “comotion” these days. He found me snapping pictures of my husband hacking the head off of a snake (and yelping) with our three children crying in horror around us.