Folks, I’m sure you’re familiar with the term AirBnB (Air Bed and Breakfast). It’s when a homeowner lets a stranger or strangers rent all or a portion of the home for a fee. It’s like a private motel room rental in your home.
Well, Nevah and I recently took the concept to a new level, by creating a “Work” Bed and Breakfast in our home. Here’s what happened:
Emporia and the area around it is ground zero on the planet for disc golf tournaments. A couple of weeks ago, Emporia hosted some level of world disc golf championship. A horde of disc golfers descended on Emporia from all over the U.S. and the globe to participate — some, I’ve read, from as far away as Finland.
As it turns out, Nevah and I are friends with two families of avid and skilled disc golfers. The fathers are brothers. One family — the Aiman Flingitts — is from Branson, Mo., and the other — the S. Quinton Flingitts — is from Jackson, Tenn.
As we have done for several years when they are participating in the disc golf tourney, Nevah and I offer to turn our basement — as no expense — into a temporary dorm for the group. This year the two dads and four sons moved in.
However, before they moved into our Free AirBnB, I informed them that this year Nevah and I have a “Work AirBnB.” I told the group that before any of them left for home, I had two tasks that they had to get accomplished. One task required good backbones and heavy lifting. The other task required a skill level, and patience level, beyond my skill and patience level.
They laughingly agreed to the new terms — but then asked what the two tasks were. I informed them that Nevah and I continue our efforts to downsize our lives and one important part of it involved moving my office from the basement to upstairs — where my new office will share space with Nevah’s sewing room.
I told them the transition involved moving an unwieldy hide-a-bed couch, which weighs umpteen hundred pounds, from the sewing room to the basement.
The second task was to assemble the new metal/wooden office desk that I had ordered and wuz sitting unpacked in a couple of cardboard shipping boxes in the garage. The new desk consisted of several wooden working surfaces and metal legs that would be held together by umpteen hundred myriad bolts and screws.
I told them that by assembling my new desk they would probably be saving Nevah’s and my marriage because if she and I tried to assemble the desk, divorce might be in the offing.
Well, that’s how the whole deal went down. The muscular group wrestled the Mt. Rushmore-size hide-a-bed out into the garage, put it into my pickup, and then strongarmed it into the basement via the walkout door. They set the bed up and used it during their stay.
Aiman wuz the member of the group who got “volunteered” to assemble the new desk because he was rumored to be “an Ikea specialist.” Turned out he is and we got my new desk put together and moved into place in the now office/sewing room with only minor setbacks and problems.
Now I’ll be warmer this winter writing my columns and I won’t risk breaking my bones by going up and down the stairs to the basement multiple times a day.
So, in the end, our “Work AirBnB” worked out just fine. The disc golfers worked out their basement stay and earned their breakfasts. We got work done that we couldn’t do ourselves.
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Speaking of work. This has been a week of harvest and work preparing homegrown grub for the winter. First, I harvested a peck of peppers, and, no, they weren’t pickled. They got frozen. Then I harvested the dwarf okra plants.
Nevah and I canned tomatoes and then made around 30 quarts of tomato juice. Then I picked apples and we made applesauce, plus, sliced apples for future apple pies. I’ll add that Nevah made a new yummy recipe for Apple Fritter Bread that turned out A-one.
Then, I picked a bushel of apples for my good neighbor, ol’ P. Lanton Pickem, and when I delivered them, much to my delight and surprise, Lanton gave me a garbage bag full of top-notch freshly picked green beans. Nevah and I turned them into 31 pints of canned green beans before dark that day.
I think I’ve mentioned before that two years ago I bought a motor-driven contraption that makes for much easier processing for tomato juice, salsa, apple sauce, and other veggie/fruit squeezing. You just cut the stuff into pieces and drop them into the chute and, voila, out comes the goody on one side and the peels and seeds extrude out another.
I’ve been giving excess tomatoes to all the neighbors. And, now all the apple trees, but one small one, have been picked and processed by Nevah and I, or given away. The neighbors have been using our handy-dandy machine, too.
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The purple martins and the barn swallows have departed for the South. But the tough little hummingbirds are still hanging around waiting for colder weather to migrate.
Words of wisdom for the week: “Perhaps I’m tired all the time because of social unrest.” Have a good ‘un.
