Coming up mother's driveway, fresh dew can be easily seen all over the pasture and lawn. The cows are eating from the hay which was put out the day before. Everything is quiet and at rest.
Mother rises from the porch and comes to open the garage door. I can tell when I see her face that it's not good. A foolish grin flashes me as her finger covers her mouth. "Shh...Kay's in the bed," she says. Well, this is a routine thing with mother, thinking that her sister-in-law has come to visit. I knew that Kay wasn't asleep in mother's bed for more reasons than one, so I went on in and proceeded to hand out pills and instructions for the day. Mother, not wanting to hear one word I had to say until she checked out each bedroom to see if I had told her the truth about no one being there. One by one she quietly opened the doors, revealing the truth that Kay was not there. She stopped and sat at the table, swallowing her pills and insisting that someone had been there but had left before I arrived.
Since today was "hair day" and "eating out day," I didn't have to prepare food, so there was time to sit on the porch until I had to leave for work. As most of you know,there's just something about the country life, fresh air, birds and animals of every kind, laid back atmosphere; the life that most of us dream of. I must say, mother has lived a very charmed life on her farm since she and Yates built their home and moved here. When Yates passed, mother begin telling of strange events that she has witnessed on her farm.
One day at work, I received a call from her telling me that there were lions crossing the bottom field. Another day, there were animals that looked like zebras with big tails. Thinking that this must be white-tailed deer or the like, we sorta chuckled and dismissed it. I recall a day on mother's porch when all you could see were crows flying over her pasture. As they flew over, like most crows will do, they would make their caw sound. Mother asked in a very subtle voice; "what's the name of that bird making that crow noise?"
Later on, mother began telling that she was seeing mountain climbers, "propelling" off the mountain in front of her house. She told that they had headquarters just up the road and must be stationed there. This went on for years as she summoned the police to her house on several occasions, stating that there were people on her property at night with lanterns and mysterious lights. She would always say that the mountain climbers were a man and a woman. How she could know this was a mystery in itself. She stated that she could hear things that they were saying while climbing down. Now, I have told of mother's sonic hearing in earlier posts, but even mother would be hard pushed to hear what mountain climbers were saying at pitch dark and 30 miles away. One night, she told us that her living room lamp was helping them know which direction to go. When she turned the light off, they would begin to climb back up, if she turned the light back on, they would start back down.
One day she told me that an airplane had landed in her pasture. Mother didn't seem bothered by the fact that an airplane had landed in her pasture which had it's share of hills and bumps, instead, she was upset that she didn't receive even a "thank you" card in the mail the following weeks and months from the pilot and his female student pilot.
Another familiar story on this funny farm is the tale of the mountain directly in front of mother's house. The story goes that one day mother's late husband Yates and a bunch of old men were sitting in the yard and looked up on the mountain. Being just a "bunch of old dirty men" mother would say, they decided the mountain looked like a woman, lying on her stomach with her butt up in the air.
I'm sure Chevy Chase has nothing over on my mother's farm; the funniest farm!
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