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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 45/123

project from the balcony, I saw a big "Big Red Wasp" nest in the
flower box and thought it shouldn’t be there, someone might get
stung. I picked up a piece of molding about 4 feet long and took
action. I had never in my young life seen such a rapid reaction to an
action, resulting in getting 4 or 5 stings. Sure enough someone did
get stung! That ended my balcony supervising job for the day. They
got the ceiling finished even though I wasn’t on hand to supervise.
The concrete floor for the veranda was never poured, Papa hauled sand
and put a good layer so it wouldn't get muddy. A couple of times a
year we would bring fresh pine straw to cover the sand. The sand was
fine and soft, similar to river bank sand and not very dirty. Fleas
have a tendency to thrive in a sandy environment, hence they would
congregate there, we would gather wild myrtle to help discourage them
form setting up housekeeping. A little lime sprinkled around also
helped keep them in check.

While Vera and I were growing up I can remember us having two dogs,
although we did have others. Ted, I mentioned earlier was part
Bulldog, a real hearty dog. Later we had a large female long black
hair dog. While we were real small about the time of June's colt
years "Lady" would go to the field on command and round up the cows
and if a horse was with them the horse too, and bring them to the
barn. We would sit on the high wooden fence post so we could see her
working them in the field on the way home. For someone who has never
seen a dog working livestock that is quite a sight to see. She was a
very beautiful dog, but we lost her in the mid forties. With her
thick hair it was easy for ticks to get on her and not be found for a
while. That was a long time before tick and flea collars were
invented, so we had to keep a close watch. However one did get on her
and we missed it until it was too late, she died from the fever.

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