We made a few trips back to Iowa during my youngest childhood years. I loved talking to all our relatives and being the center of their attention. One way to get my grandmother’s attention was to oversee her flyswatter. Hog farms in Iowa have a notorious screen door to keep these tiny menaces out of the house. If they did get past that loud slapping screen door, someone needed to man the flyswatter. My grandmother kept her house spotless. Spotless is probably an understatement – it was always immaculate. How she did this on a farm while raising nine children is mind-boggling.
She would offer the grandkids money (a penny, a dime, I can’t even remember) for every fly we knocked down to get them out of her house. She did not like flies in her lovely home, especially her kitchen.
I was sitting at her kitchen table one day, helping knock down a few flies that were driving her crazy. I had recently gotten in trouble because I had repeated some “bad words.” I asked her how old I needed to be before I could say some of those words. At the time, I was dead serious because my backside still smarted from being spanked. I wanted to know when it was going to be legal for me to say whatever I wanted. I’m sure she struggled to keep a straight face trying to come up with the right words to explain to me they never wanted me to use those words. In her most grandmotherly way, she wanted to know why I was so bent on wanting to use naughty words. I really had no logical explanation. I just hated it when I was told I could not do something and occasionally liked testing the boundaries. I just needed some words I could use when I was frustrated. She spent the rest of the conversation giving me some acceptable vocabulary for a child to use in frustrating circumstances. I was satisfied and helped her get rid of her flies.
This past spring and into the summer I have found myself becoming obsessed with pest control – especially in my garden and lawn. My sister and I have a saying called, “mirror, mirror on the wall; I am my mother, after all.” I distinctly recall my mother trying every remedy to rid her yard of moles and voles. The varmints would leave long tunnels and hills in the beautiful front yard. Traps were set. Mole peanuts were poured out. She was always trying to get rid of these nasty creatures so they would stop tearing up their yard.
I have been fighting moles and armadillos in my own yard at home and at the office of our commercial buildings. I have spread grub pesticides to remove the food supply for these pesky critters. I think I have them beat, and then when I am out on the mower, I find that they have moved onto a new area of the yard. The generational fight continues – lawn and garden-loving woman versus tiny little ground beast.
Between cattle and kids leaving doors hang open too long, we have quite a few flies this year in the house. Just a few days ago, when a door was left open, I overheard some ugly language coming from our basketball court. Unlike my grandmother, I did not think any of it was funny. I told both boys if I heard it again, I was going to shave both of their heads. If they come to school looking like they’re ready to join a branch of the military, you’ll know I made good on my promise. I think my grandmother would be impressed with that strategy and my bougie animal print fly swatter, neighbor.
Jody Harris is a freelance communications specialist, gardener, ranch wife and mother of four. She and her family raise Angus beef cattle and other critters on their northwest Arkansas ranch. She is a graduate of Missouri State University. To contact Jody, go to ozarksfn.com and click on ‘Contact Us.’
