Creosote & Copper Sulphate…..good times…
I was told by my friend, Lola, that I write like a schizophrenic.
She’s probably right…………………………
…..I do.
But take some pity. All of you floating on that cloud-thing out there. It’s simple for you to just stop reading, or walk away, or click out, or hang up & delete………………………..I’m stuck in this room in my mind……………………….you guys can leave the room any time you want……………………..you can just walk out the door……………………..I’m stuck in this room like an inmate doing time……………..
Be kind to this crazy old woman…………………………she bites.
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I’m going to try something different.
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I’m going to try to write less volume in each post……….but write more often.
The last post was just part of one of my typical diatribes. That was one third of this tome. Here’s the second third of that same sojourn.
(I wrote the whole thing while I had the quasi-flu.)
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*************But speaking of creosote-saturated wood………………(see………………..this was the middle part of the last post)………………….
I’m not sure this is a good memory from my youth, but creosote has played a part in most of my life.
(See, maybe I’m just creosote-addled.)
It was my job on more than one occasion to paint the walls of the barn with creosote paint.
Big sloppy black cans of it.
You see, the aforementioned donkeys that we had when I was a child were more browsers than grazers. 
And as a result, they would chew on and/or eat just about anything.
Including the walls of the barn.
My job was to coat everything (including myself) with multiply coats of creosote, to try to deter the donkeys from munching their way through the barn (quite literally & physically). I remember the tarry, gooey paint running up my arms and dripping from my elbows.
No one ever thought about creosote being bad for you……………….or copper-sulphate, for that matter…………………….(another farm staple).
The sacks of copper-sulphate were filled with these blue crystals that my father would hand-broadcast over the algae floating on the surface of the water in our front pond———-where we swam regularly.
I remember floating on car tire inner-tubes looking at the sun reflecting through the faceted sides of the blue crystals where they sat on the top of the algae, right next to me………………………….ah, good times……………………fond memories.
I think it was called Blue Vitriol………………..that’s a blast from the past!?! Where did that memory come from?
I just Yahoo’d copper sulfate to check on its contraindications…………….not great/but not as bad as I thought they were going to be…………….and no where close to as bad as creosote…
However, as we all know, creosote is a very bad thing……….everywhere……..not just in California.
Additionally, the donkeys DID NOT even notice that the barn walls were dripping with the carcinogen. They just munched right through it.
As I remember, we gave up on slathering creosote paint on everything. What ultimately did slow the donkeys down was painting with a slurry made from their own manure and water…………………………..I’m sure Betty Joe Bob (my cousin and best friend) was involved in all of this.
There was just no way that we would have let her escape THAT fun.
