Butterpup and the Girly Girls – Part 3

 

Butterpup and the Girly Girls – Part 3

 

In Part 3 our number is reduced by one…but we manage to continue the fun, and the Girly Girls realize the itchy problem with blackberry picking.  Oh, and don’t forget an escapee who joins us for lunch before being taken back into custody.

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I walked out of my room the following morning to hear, “But Grannie Annie, it SCRATCHES.”

Most of the Girly Girls were up and a couple of them were vigorously scratching places that polite little girls don’t scratch in public.  At Grannie Annie’s house it was OK.

I asked them to let me see some of the spots but beseeched them not to show me any of THOSE places.

It did no good to correct them, “You are scratching.  The spots are itching.”  But the grammar Nazi in me required it.

Anyway, the girls showed me some of the little, raised, red bumps that were bothering them.  I was glad to see that the girls didn’t have poison ivy, but I was still disappointed to find that they were all getting intimately familiar with some of the less loveable denizens of the Matthews farm.

The girls had chiggers.

It could have been worse; it could have been ticks.  Of course, the way chiggers itch might make one think otherwise.  Chiggers are so small that they are virtually invisible, and are actually gone before the itching starts.  Worse yet, the tiny critters dig into the places where they are least likely to be knocked off, places where clothing is closest to the skin.  That means places that it’s not good to be seen scratching, at least in polite society.

Annie treated the Girly Girls with an old home remedy – bleach.  I guess it helped, at least some, but the unabashed scratching continued off and on all week.

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After another breakfast that helped fatten our dogs and chickens, Andy, Madison, and Harper left for home.  The sad goodbye hugs and more than a few tears made the farewell a sad one.

The girls may have cried a little too.

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Afterwards, with all the girls strapped into our trusty red van, Ruby, we headed out to Cape Girardeau and another day of high adventure.  We stopped off at one of Cape’s McDonalds for some lunch.  The girls all wanted to take a potty break and the line to order was long so Annie asked me to save her place in line.  They’d all be back before it was my turn to order…theoretically.

Yeah, right.  My turn came and I stalled for a moment before stepping out of line.  Back at the end of the queue, I joked with one of the other customers just as Annie and the Girly Girls came walking toward me.

We took our order to go.

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Our next stop was Lazy L Safari Park, where Uncle Patrick and his girlfriend, Christa met us.  There we were going to see various species of exotic animals.  We were allowed to feed several kinds with special food purchased at the entrance so we kept it with us while we sat at the covered picnic tables eating our McDonalds.

As we sat at the tables, one of the girls squealed, “Look out Pa!  One the animals got out!”

I looked around expecting a bear, or a tiger, or at the very least, a rhino (none of which they have at the park).  No such luck.  A very pregnant pigmy goat waddled to me and politely begged for some food.  After sharing a little of the feed we’d purchased for that purpose, we finished our lunch.

Next to where we were eating was the parakeet cage.  Roughly the size of a small bedroom, the cage is home to dozens of the brightly colored birds.  The girls are older this year and not quite as scared of their fine feathered friends.  Still, those tiny clawed feet gripping their hands can be just too much for a little girl.

Meanwhile, Uncle Patrick and I were flocking together with lots of the tiny birds of a feather.  One seemed to think the sweat on the back of my neck was sweet.  Either that or it wanted to use the hair on my back as nesting material.  Anyway, I was kind of relieved when all of our bird-seed-on-a-stick was gone.

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The Girly Girls enjoyed the goats and their kids, the sheep and their lambs, the fallow deer, antelope, cavies, even the alligators and snakes.  What nobody liked was the heat.

After having a good time with the animals, we headed over to the Conservation Nature Center, which is also in Cape…and air conditioned.  There we saw displays about the settling of our area and about trapping, hunting, and fishing.  Of course there were displays of animals and fish, and even a few live ones, like the two-headed rat snake.

I guess you could actually say there were thousands of live ones because one display was a clear glass honeybee hive.  They had a tube so they could go outside and harvest the nectar from the plentiful wildflowers, then bring it back inside to their hive to convert it to honey.  None of them could get loose in the building with us, which we all agreed was good.  Of course, we couldn’t get into the hive either, so we couldn’t taste their honey.

Dang it.

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After leaving the Nature Center I had an idea for something the girls might like to see, so we went to a nearby 100+ year old grist mill and covered bridge.

Bollinger Mill was closed for renovation but we were able to walk across the bridge.  I explained to the girls that people used it back in horse and buggy days.  They thought that was neat but were more interested in all the old graffiti.  We looked at the names carved into the timbers by irresponsible visitors.  Some of the names were new but some were as old as the bridge.  We laughed when we found the names of Pfiefer’s other grandfather and his wife.  Obviously they weren’t inscribed by them.  Neither Annie nor I carved ours either, but they were there too.

Interesting.

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The girls were tuckered out by the busy day and the trip home was quiet.  That was a good thing because Grannie Annie decided to go home by a new route, and a road closed for repairs took us through way more of Southeast Missouri than we actually wanted to see.

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Grannie got us home safely and we tucked the girls in bed as she and I contemplated the next phase of Girls Week.

It was time to pack, but there was plenty of fun to have, and I was presented with something I never expected to face during the Girly Girls’ visit.  I’ll tell you about that next time…in part 4.

 

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(below) A short video I assembled from pictures and videos from the day in this post.

4 Comments on "Butterpup and the Girly Girls – Part 3"

  1. Deonna Hampton | July 22, 2018 at 6:43 am |

    Listerine on chiggers bites. Tip my granny gave me long ago. Looks like girls week was loads of fun.

  2. I am sure the safari was a huge hit. They all seem to love animals. Great idea!!!!

    • davidscott | July 25, 2018 at 8:32 pm |

      Thanks. Annie knows it’s one of my favorite places too. Sh-h-h-h, don’t tell anybody. 🙂 Now you know where they got their love of animals.

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