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Once upon a time, actually two years ago this month, there was a local summer’s end sale at a favorite store. Sale is a “friendly four-letter word” at Angelkeep. Gwen loves her store-sale fliers and used magazines with coupons. (Along with these, the Sunday newspaper more than pays for itself in coupon savings.) I cater to the discount, discontinued, and reduction tables and carts in local establishments. Most of our books are used or local library loans. We consider the library a “thrift center.” This bargain purchasing mode of living helps, leaving funds for the amount of grain purchased for the Angelkeep family, consisting of deer, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, coons, mink, possums, fish, and additional, less-frequent, visiting critters.
The bonanza find of 24 months ago was a hammock, 15 feet long, heavy cording, with pillow, and coming in a forest green color. It was set aside. Three months after the thrilling unexpected drastically reduced purchase, the hammock was wrapped and gifted to a son, who immediately hauled it off to West Lafayette, to a home with ample trees to serve as hammock supports. An added plus, was the fact that after years of trying, I’d been able to get my son a gift that he actually liked and looked forward to using.
The negative to the gifting of the hammock find-of-a-lifetime was the fact that I had secretly desired a hammock of my own for years, ever since leaving one behind at a former home location. Now, having no hammock, and my son with a gorgeous forest green family size hammock, all I had was the tendency to covet. It is written, “Thou shalt not covet my neighbor’s wife, nor my son’s hammock (very loosely translated).”
Seasons pass at Angelkeep with the typical enjoyment of patio sitting, upon the trusty but rapidly aging swing, and the continual visitations of wildlife. Gwen’s lust for used magazines and even the Sunday newspaper more than pay for themselves in coupon savings. The deer arrive displaying late summer fawns, unconscious of the garage sales and second-hand buys that make ethanol-inflated corn prices yet affordable for the feeding of Angelkeep’s migrating multitude.
One such garage sale involved the successful price haggling and eventual purchase of a used, but like new, hammock. White, with no hanging hardware or stand. The only thing needed at Angelkeep for this more recent hammock purchase, destined to stay at Angelkeep, was a pair of trees with substantial trunks and exactly the right span of distance between them. Alas, Angelkeep has no abundance of full-grown trees close enough together to support the hammock. Not like the son in Purdue country, with his hammock fully deployed, available for daily use. A covetous nature nearly returned.
Life at Angelkeep, kept a steady pace of adorable bird song, animal frolic, season passing, and many used books being read from the patio swing—as reported weekly in “Angelkeep Journals.” The white hammock stood rolled in a corner of the garage collecting additional webbing.
Summer of 2009 was determined to be the deciding season. A support of some sort would be purchased or built for the Angelkeep hammock. Lo and behold, or as the Bible would begin, “And it came to pass…” that a frame was secured at a discount sale. One-half off!
Now I lay me down to sleep…on my hammock. But the excitement of the first hammock reclining moment of Angelkeep was highlighted with wide awake unforgettable viewing. From the view of the hammock, the honeysuckle blooms above the patio, vining on the upper deck rail, was like a late fireworks display in red, orange, and yellow. And the aerial display of the hungry, long-hovering hummingbirds, those we thought were not around because they obviously were preferring honeysuckle nectar to the bottled sugar water brew, left me near speechless.
The assembly of the tubular hammock frame happened in the grass between the cement patio and the sunflower seed bird feeders. There, taking the first hammock swinging voyage of Angelkeep, allowed a close, in-your-face, look at the finches and downy woodpeckers who quickly decided that a hammock-laying human was no threat to their life while dining on sunflower seed. The reclined position was maintained, even with white cording indenting a waffle design into the skin of my back. All too soon, the sun decided to set and call an end to the first perfect day of Angelkeep hammock swinging. The sky turned slowly to an astonishing display of rose colored clouds surrounded by blue-violet skies. What fantastic views are obtainable from the hammock position!
And God said it was good.
by ALAN DAUGHERTY
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their back yard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
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