Mowing, the Highlands of Scotland and CALM

Mowing, the Highlands of Scotland and CALM

By Bobby Neal Winters

 July is a treacherous month for those of us on the Great Plains who struggle under the tyranny of NALM, the National Association of Lawn Mowers.  

It’s all about rain.

Early in the year, we begin the mowing season by mowing every week. We could probably mow more often, but we can get by by mowing every week.  We are getting rain, and the daily temperature is low enough not to evaporate all of that rain.

As the spring turns to summer, the temperature goes up and--as a rule--the amount of rain we receive goes down.  Then, as a general rule, we can transition from mowing weekly to mowing every other week.  This usually occurs about the time of the Solstice.

Then comes July. 

I remember one summer a few years ago when the daily temperature was up around 100 and it stopped raining entirely.  I didn’t have to mow from the end of June until the last of October.

This was not a good thing.

More typically, I’ve only had to mow once in July by fudging a bit. Ignoring weeds and grass gone to seed.

This July is different, and I take the blame.

Jean and I went on a vacation to the Highlands of Scotland for almost two weeks.  It was an adventure to do while we still can, while we still have our health and good minds.

There was a lot of preparation because we were going to hike, but in addition to that, we had to prepare the house to leave.  For my part, I had to take care of the mowing.  This was made challenging because it was still raining fairly frequently.

Because of this, I had to hit a mark a day or two before we left, for fear of mowing too early and coming back to a very tall, challenging lawn, or waiting too late and missing the opportunity to mow at all because of rain.

NALM has standards.  You miss those to your peril. They can put injunctions on you; they can blackball you; they can look askance at you.

You don’t mess with NALM.

But regardless, I got my mowing done, gone on the plane, and made my way--along with my beautiful, long-suffering wife--to the Highlands of Scotland.

While there, I made some important discoveries.  Their weather forecasts are different than ours.  There are only a few: It may stop raining soon; the rain is going to let up a bit; it has stopped raining but it will start again soon; you might see some sunshine today.

At least, that is the way it seemed.

It did stop raining, and we did have a wonderful vacation, but as a result of the ample rain and bountiful summer sun, their lawns grow vigorously.  They are green and robust.  And, while I will mow at most once a week, I swear they must have to mow once in the morning and again in the afternoon.

At one of the bed and breakfast where we stayed, I asked the secret.

“How do you keep up with it?”

Our host replied with a smile.

“Marvin the Mower,” he said.

My face showed confusion.  It was explained to me that Marvin the Mower is a robot mower.  He’s battery-powered and he comes out, mows grass and gathers yard trash on a pre-programmed basis.

I was confused because such innovations are ruled-out by NALM.  One of NALM’s tenets is the use of lawn mowing for spiritual growth.  Having a robot to do your mowing for you subverts that purpose.

It turns out--and I shouldn’t’ve been surprised--that in the Highlands of Scotland they have a different lawn mowing association.  

In NALM, the National is the United States.  We organized first, so we claimed the easy names.

In the rest of the world it is different. In Australia, it is BALM. In South Africa, it is SAALM.  In the Highlands of Scotland, it is CALM.

CALM you say? Shouldn’t that go to Canada?

Canada took the low-hanging fruit, and just used NALM.  Some of them tried to style it as NAALM, the North American Association of Lawnmowers, but that extra A was just too much.

CALM comes from the Caledonian Association of Lawn Mowers.  Caledonia is the old Roman name for the Highlands of Scotland.

After having spoken to the guy at the bed and breakfast, I have to say the name fits. They are allowed to use robotic mowers and are given a lot more freedom.

The beauty of their lawns have not suffered for this.

I don’t know if NALM is ready for this yet or not.

In the meantime, we mow.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

Bitterness and Sweetness Squeezed through a Bagpipe

 Bitterness and Sweetness Squeezed through a Bagpipe

By Bobby Neal Winters

Country music is the fruit of the tree whose roots are in Celtic folk music.  I say this without reference, argument, or justification.  I say it just as  a person who has two ears and a heart.

Jean and I have returned from a tour of the Highlands of Scotland. After a challenging day of hiking--much more challenging because I didn’t listen to Jean at the correct time--we went out for dinner at a location that was featuring traditional Highland music.

I can’t remember the group; I can’t remember the songs: I just remember the feelings as they flowed through me.

Celtic music has a flavor.  Even in the bitter, you can taste a bit of the sweet; even in the sweet, just a wee bit of the bitter.

We sat and listened.  We were at the outdoor venue of a theater.  It was their summer concert series. There were young people there from good families who were selling “taco bowls.”

There were various choices of meats. We made a familiar choice: Chili.  Rest assured of this, whatever the name they called it, it was completely, totally, and utterly, unlike chili.  One day the chef may actually meet a Texan, taste some chili, and understand.  In the meantime, the chili we ate produced through a Scottish lens was lovely, nonetheless.

We sat at a picnic table in the twilight and let it wash over us.

The venue was crowded and a man of about our age asked if he could have the other end of the table.  We obliged.

As we are Americans, we introduced ourselves to him.  As he was a Scot, he was fine with that.

He was an oilman who’d worked the rigs in the North Sea.  His wife joined him, bringing drinks.  She was English.

Scottish music, like country music, has a sense of place. Maybe more so.  Hear a bagpipe, and you will think of only one place.

This sense of place may be made perfect in Loch Lomond.

You take the high road and I’ll take the low road/ 

and I will be in Scotland before you

The story of the song is that two soldiers have been captured.  One has been sentenced to hang and the other is to be freed.  The one who is to be hanged is comforting the survivor: Don’t worry about me, I am going to be back in Scotland before you.

From this tradition, we come to “Tulsa Time,” “Texas When I Die,” and “Rocky Top” just to name a few. (To those of you who spend time on YouTube, I recommend searching Runrig Live in Loch Lomond.) 

The Scots were never occupied by the Roman Empire.  

Genetically, all the peoples of the British Isles are almost identical: A few more Vikings one place, a few more Norman French, other.  In the stew, they are all Celts with a little salt and pepper.  

One might argue, after a day of walking through the Highlands and then filling yourself with good Scottish soup, bread, and just a tiny bit of Single Malt, that the difference between the peoples is due to a subtle cultural effect: The Romans left the English with the idea they were in charge.

The Scots don’t exhibit this idea at all.  They are in their homes. They love nature and seek to live in harmony with it.  They just want to live free on whatever nature allows them to use for their own benefit, whether that is oats, sheep, fish, or the tourists God sends their way.

I think we country folk from Kansas and Oklahoma and the Scots are very much alike when we are at our best.

On our first full day of hiking, when we were headed from Blair Atholl to Pithlocry, our path took us along a country road at one point.  

There were times when we had to share the road with trucks that were headed to the quarry up the way.  The roads were narrow so that when the trucks came by, Jean and I would have to balance ourselves in the bar ditch.

Every single truck driver on every single passage waved at us.  Every passenger in every vehicle waved at us.  We waved back.

It was just like being here.

So we are back.  I will be walking here, waving at people I don’t, listening to country music, and thinking about the Highlands from time to time.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.

On Being the Water in the Stew

By Bobby Neal Winters

I’ve begun working my way through the Brother Cadfael books on my walks, listening on Audible. I’d first become familiar with this series when they were on the Old PBS Mystery Series back ump-teen years ago.

They were written by Ellis Peters.  As I was listening, I marveled how well the characters were written, and how three-dimensional the characters were, even the women.  I marveled at how good a job Ellis Peters had done, so much so that I looked him up.  Or I should say her up, because Ellis Peters was the pen name of Edith Pargeter.

These are very interesting stories, and I am discovering that the old BBC series stayed close to the books, at least in the points that I can remember from so long ago.

The stories are set in Shrewsbury (pronounced SHROHS-bury).  It is a town in England in Shropshire, a county that borders Wales. It is set in the time of “the Anarchy.”  This was when England was having a succession crisis. There were two claimants of the throne and they were having a war to determine who: King Stephan or Empress Maud. (In case you are wondering who won, the answer is neither.  They ultimately came to a compromise that Maud’s son, known to history as Henry II, would take the crown. The rest is history, as they say.)

I like this sort of stuff.

For one, the setting itself has so many boundaries in it: England and Wales; Stephan and Maud; Church and State.

For another thing, it is part of my history.  Or my family's history.

Like so many Americans, my family didn’t really know where we came from.  Whenever the census came around, we were among those who, when asked about their heritage, replied, “American.” (Or more likely ‘Murican.) This was because we were poor, uneducated, and just didn’t know.

Now, given the Internet and DNA testing, we are much better informed.  We took the DNA test.  We’d thought at one point that we were German. No. We had a persistent tradition in the family that there was some Cherokee among our genetics. Nope.

With the collective knowledge of the Internet and the full power of modern science, I’ve reached the conclusion that we are British through and through. No German at all; not a drop of Cherokee.

It was really, really hard to give up on that Cherokee.

Some family history work one of our distant cousins had done had given us a clue, but the DNA test backed it all up.  For good measure, I double-checked on an online genealogy site.

English, and in North America since the 1750s on the Winters’ side. (My mother’s people might go back to Jamestown.  I am less sure of this. We’d been told that they were Irish, but no.  We can’t claim victimhood anytime after the Norman Conquest, and it’s possible that some of our ancestors were Normans.)

This knowledge has had an interesting effect on me.  While I’d always enjoyed the snotty British shows on PBS (it stands for “Pretty British Stuff”), I began watching the programs more carefully. In particular, I really pay attention to anything in a rural setting, anything out in the country.

Do they garden the way Grampa did? Do they cut up their tators like Grandma did?

Always looking for some connection to the past, to our roots.

People of British heritage, English in particular, are not really encouraged to have pride in it.  The Irish get away with the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade; the Scot’s are allowed pride in their kilts and their bagpipes; but the English not so much.

I suppose there are a lot of reasons for this. One voice in my head says it’s because the English are the oppressors, the colonizers, the paradigm bad guys.  Every villain in every movie has a British accent.  

Another voice in my head says it’s because the English were the water in the stew and all others were the meat and taters. Back in Europe, the meat and taters were the Scots, Welsh, and Irish. In America, the meat and taters were the Germans, the Italians, the Africans, the Irish (again), the hispanic, and the Indigenous peoples and the others that I am leaving out due to ignorance. 

Looked at that way, it’s not so bad. You have to have water to make a stew, and a stew is a good thing.  Meat and taters are good by themselves, but there’s nothing quite like a good stew with some cornbread crumbled up in it on a cold day.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.