Small Town Pastimes

 Columbus, North Dakota

That first late afternnoon the DDT guy came by.  Now this guy had some proper cloud making equipment.  This was several times more dense than what I observed in Bowbells and Drake.  It had a deeper sound to it also, not like a toy airplane.

The cloud of death hung there for awhile in the still air.  Several minutes later I could smell it.  Reminded me of Black Flag or Raid insect spray.

Then he came by again and one more time after.  He was serious about this.  

This time I shut the windows.

The next morning I stepped outside.  The mosquitoes were there to greet me.  

A lot a good that spraying did.

We left our spot to go find some shade for the day.  On our way down the street a local standing in his driveway by his truck waved and then gestured for me to stop.  He walked over.

“Good morning.  Did you know there is a campground down the road?” 

“Yeah, we stayed there last night.”

“No, I saw you there. That’s not it.  It is further on down.”

“I thought that was it.”

“I thought you might have thought that.  The campground has hookups and shade.  It’s real nice.  You’ll like it.”

“Well what is that we stayed at?”

“Oh the electrical company built that for their workers if they have a project out here.”

“Well I’ll be.  Thank you for telling me.  We’ll go check it out.”

“You’re welcome.”

“By the way, does that bug spraying do any good?”

“Yes it does, especially if he follows it up on the next evening.”

“Oh.”

We had a thunderstorm pass through that next evening so he didn’t come out.  It so happened that Bowbells got hit real hard with that storm with hail and all sorts of mayhem.  

And we were just there two days earlier.

We turned back to check out the real campground park.

Too many people.  We would go back to Electrical Company Park that night.

We spent the day in some shade down the street to the right.

This house was abandoned.  The grass was nearly two feet high, thick with weeds.

Two middle-aged women came in on the their riding lawn mowers and started in cutting down the jungle. Let me tell you those tractors were bogging down in some parts straining hard to cut it all.

We moved to get out from their way slinging debris.

I took theses pictures the next day to show the aftermath. 

Now I wish I had taken a few of them working.

The next morning we had a new spot for the day.  This woman was out dragging a piece of railroad track iron behind her ATV.  I finally realized she was just knocking down all the growth.  She couldn’t mow as there was too much rock which would damage the cutting blades.  As with the lawn mower lady back in Flaxton, and those two women attacking the abandoned house lot, I have a question for you small town farm girls following the blog:  Is all this just a matter of these women caring about their town and getting out there to cut grass on land and lots that no one else lives at so it all looks nice, plus giving them something to do which it appears there isn’t much to do in these little towns?

As I lay in bed that evening thinking about it I could see myself out there riding around cutting grass.

What else would I have to do living in a small town?

Maybe the bug guy is doing the same - volunteering his time for the love of his town.