Unibrow, Red Breasts, and Night Growls

Unibrow. In addition to having a red and runny nose and chapped lips shiny with lip balm due to the cold weather, I’m now walking around with one eyebrow. The other one got burned off when I used gasoline to start a burn pile. It was another Danny Dumbass moment.

Having one eyebrow gives me this perpetually perplexed expression like I’m not quite sure what is going on. That about sums it up, don’t you think?

If there’s anything positive about the experience, I think I’ve found a solution for excessive nose hair.

Red Breasts. Creatures up here seem to gang together and come in waves. First it was a bunch of stoned squirrels. Then we were invaded by hoards of daddy long legs, followed by wooly caterpillars and Asian ladybugs. One day last fall, there must have been over a hundred crows roosting in the trees on the far hillside and making an unbelievable racket. I think it may have been a crow orgy.

Now it’s robins. It’s nothing to see 30 to 50 robins in the field next to the cabin. I did some research and discovered that robins are migratory. Since we would see robins in the spring in Florida, my guess is that the robins here are heading south after having spent the summer up north.

Robins eat bugs, grubs, and worms, as well as seeds. I have no idea how much food there is for them in my field, but it sure looks like they are working their feathery little asses off to find food. It’s been unusually cold this winter, and the ground is frozen half the time. The grass is brown and sere, and I don’t see a lot of seed heads. Except for the Asian ladybugs who are spending winter inside the cabin, I haven’t seen many insects lately. Even the daddy long legs are on a hiatus. If I had to guess, I’d say there are sparse pickings for robins in these parts.

If that’s the case, I wonder why they are traveling through north Georgia at this time of year? Maybe the unusually cold weather has screwed them up or it’s bad timing on their part or they misinterpreted the weather signs.

I’m a little concerned about the apparent tendency of local critters to come in bunches. Though we have yet to see one, bears are a problem around here. Our neighbor up the hill had one crawling around on her porch not too long ago. All I need is to be invaded by a gang of bears.

Incidentally, we are still pestered by ladybugs. They hide in nooks and crannies in the cabin and come out when it gets warm. There are usually a dozen or so of them. I don’t know if that’s all of them or if there are thousands of them hidden somewhere and they only send out small search parties when it gets warm. Since we keep killing them and they keep coming, my guess is that there are a bunch of them somewhere in the cabin. I have nightmares of opening a closet or a drawer and finding a writhing mass of ladybugs.

At this point, they are a minor nuisance. Every now and then one will drop on my head or crawl down my collar. I’ll wake up from a nap with one crawling on my face. We’ve gotten used to seeing little dots moving around on our TV screen while we’re watching TV. It can get confusing when you’re watching football. Is that the ball or Mr. Ladybug?

The other day one landed in my salad. I thought it was a small pimento. Now I have to check my food closely to see whether that bacon bit is really an insect. I’ve had to stop eating Capt’n Crunch with crunch berries. It’s hard to tell a crunch berry from a ladybug.

Lest you think I am xenophobic by referring to them as Asian ladybugs, that’s what they are called in the literature. They are different than American ladybugs. American ladybugs are always red with black spots. Asian ladybugs can be red, but more often they are orange or a light brown. The fact they are Asian plays no part in my reaction to them, though I, for one, remember Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March, and I don’t trust the little bastards one bit.

I realize that my problems with ladybugs is hardly exciting reading. It’s not like I’m living in the Amazon and have to deal with marauding crocodiles, giant poisonous snakes, or those little fish that swim up your penis and inflate to the size of blow fish. Pesky ladybugs are the best I can do. Besides, they are part of the experience of living in north Georgia, and that’s what this blog is all about.

Night Growls. I do not spook easily, and there is nothing in the woods that really scares me, even bears. The fact we do not have neighbors right next door makes me feel more secure than living in a regular neighborhood in Florida.

But the other night, around three in the morning, our little dog started making low growls and looking out the bedroom window, and I confess that I got a little spooked. You cannot see anything out our windows at night unless it’s a clear night and the moon is bright. Looking out a window is like looking at a blank television screen. Your first sight of anything outside is going to be a face pressed against the window. It will be like one of those computer videos where a scary face suddenly pops up on the screen.

I can handle fear, but I hate to be startled. That’s one of the reasons I do not like scary movies. I don’t believe there are vampires, evil spirits, aliens, or one-eyed men with chainsaws lurking in the trees. I just don’t like the tension of knowing that something’s going to happen that will make me jump in my seat.

When the dog started growling, I was waiting for a face to suddenly appear at the window. It could have been any face—Queen Elizabeth, Betty Crocker, or the Gerber Baby—and I know that I would have been squealing like a baby and firing rounds down range. The lesson here is let me know you’re coming, don’t startle me, and don’t press your face or any other part of your anatomy against my window at night.