Potpourri

At long last it seems that spring is in sight here in the north Georgia mountains. After the coldest winter that locals can remember, we just had a four day stretch where the daytime temperatures climbed into the 60’s.

Unfortunately, winter is not over. The weathermen…er, weatherpersons…are saying that we can expect colder weather in the next few days. They are using a new term for precipitation that I’ve never heard before: wintery mix. I guess it means we will be getting rain or sleet or snow. That about covers all the bases, doesn’t it? Thanks for the precision forecasting.

There are some tell-tale signs that spring is not too far off. Local garden clubs and nurseries are offering gardening classes and seminars. Small leaf buds are starting to swell on some of the trees. According to the Master Gardener emails I receive, crocuses are poking their way through the soil and hellebore blooms have started to pop up. I cannot verify this since I would not recognize a crocus or hellbore if it got in bed with me.

Meredith and I have heard the sound of frogs croaking in the evenings. Local lore is that croaking frogs signal that spring is six weeks away. Between wooly caterpillars predicting a harsh winter and croaking frogs forecasting spring, I’m beginning to feel like I stepped into the Middle Ages. So much for science and technology. I think my next course will be alchemy.

For me, the biggest sign that spring is drawing near happened when I was in the Mineral Bluff Post Office ogling Ms. Mailbags, the Postmistress. This old boy drove up in a vintage pick-up and asked if his package had arrived. When it was handed over, he remarked, “Them’s my seeds.” If the old timers are ordering seeds, planting season can’t be too far off.

Meanwhile, my Master Gardener classes continue. There were 43 students at the first class. The next week the number had dropped to 30. I assume they were frightened off by the amount of information that we have to learn.

I don’t know whether I’m impressing or irritating the teaching staff. I keep finding inconsistencies and contradictions in the course materials and firing off email questions to the instructors. For instance, we were shown a slide that said that when amending soil with organic matter, the goal is 25 percent organic matter by volume. It said that in order to accomplish this, you need to add 3 inches of amendments to 12 inches of soil. If you do the math, adding 3 inches of amendments to 12 inches of soil yields 20 percent organic matter by volume. I sent an email to the instructor pointing this out. The email response I received started with: “You are over-analyzing.” To quote Steve Martin, “Well, excuse me.”

We just received a presentation on insect pests of vegetables and ornamentals. To be honest, it was a little frightening. Some of those insects are scary, and I didn’t know there were so many of them. I’m going to be on the lookout for the Mexican Bean Beetle from now on, that’s for sure.

There is a European Corn Borer and a Lesser Cornstalk Borer. The instructor didn’t cover the Greater Cornstalk Borer. I guess that’s because it’s so frightening it will give you nightmares.

There are Cabbage Maggots, Cabbage Loopers, and Imported Cabbageworms. Why would we import a Cabbageworm? Aren’t good old American Cabbageworms good enough? I bet the Imported Cabbageworm is French.

Just the names of the bugs are scary. There are Blister Beetles, Tomato Hornworms, Fall Armyworms, Robber Flies, Spined Soldier Bugs, Minute Pirate Bugs, Assassin Bugs, and Two Lined Spittle Bugs. It’s an insect Armageddon out there. Once I get my garden going, I’m carrying a can of Raid and a 12 gauge before I step foot in it.

I can already tell that my focus as a Master Gardener will be a little different than the rest of the local Fannin County chapter. They are in to flowers and ornamentals. I’m more interested in vegetables and trees. They were astonished when I told them that I can only identify five or six flowers at most. Ulysses S. Grant once said that he could recognize two songs. One was Dixie and the other one wasn’t. I’m like that with flowers.

If the Master Gardeners start to get on me for my lack of interest in things that flower, I think I’ll go Euell Gibbons on them. When they show me a flower, I’ll rip it off the plant, stuff it in my mouth, and say, “Did you know it was edible too?” I suspect that after I eat a few of their prize blooms, they’ll leave me alone.

Switching gears, I’ve been trying to complete the stone wall in front of the cabin. Whenever I get a spare moment, I go out into the fields and woods to hunt rocks. It is a strangely rewarding activity.

One benefit of hunting rocks is that I’ve come to know my property intimately. Lately I’ve encountered a variety of scat in the fields. As you might expect, I’ve run across a lot of deer poop. Thanks to Meredith, I can recognize deer poop and tell if it’s male or female. There’s absolutely nothing I can do with that information, but at least I know whether a buck or a doe has been crapping in my fields.

I’ve also found scat that I cannot identify, even with the help of an old Boy Scout Manual. One pile looked like a bunch of frog eggs or tapioca. I have no clue what animal left that little donation.

The strangest, however, was the scat that looked like small chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing swirls on top. Could it be that I have a herd of wild French pastry chefs pooping in my fields? Maybe it’s a Bigfoot with culinary aspirations. In the future I’ll remember to photograph interesting or unusual scat and post the pictures on this blog so you can share the experience. It could be a feature of the blog. I could call it “Name that Turd” or “Poop of the Post.” I bet you can’t wait for that.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ve got to get back to studying my Master Gardner materials. There’s a mid-term exam in two weeks, and I want to be prepared for it.

Naming Winter Storms

I demand that The Weather Channel (TWC) stop the ridiculous practice of naming winter storms.

According to Wikipedia:

In November 2012, TWC began systematically naming winter storms, starting with the November 2012 nor'easter it named "Winter Storm Athena." TWC compiled a list of winter storm names for the 2012–13 winter season. It would only name those storms that are "disruptive" to people, said Bryan Norcross, a TWC senior director. TWC's decision was met with criticism from other weather forecasters, who called the practice self-serving and potentially confusing to the public. 

It is more than self-serving for TWC to name winter storms. It is an egotistical affront to the weather-watching public. Who the hell does TWC think it is? It’s my winter storm and your winter storm as much as it’s TWC’s.

What if everyone claimed the right to assign names to things? The Suwannee River would be the Wilbur River to one person and the Pedro River to another. Stephen Foster would have been out of luck. Way down upon the Bob River doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This practice of naming winter storms is a patent attempt by TWC to sensationalize a weather event in order to attract more viewers. Instead of it just being a snow storm, it’s now a storm with a name so we better pay attention to it.

Because the storm now has a name, TWC has an excuse to have “Weather Alerts” and “Storm Coverage” instead of the boring region by region weather reports it usually features. It can kill air time by cutting to Jim Cantore or some TWC weather chick standing on a street corner wearing their Weather Channel baseball caps and parkas to show us snow accumulating on a street or a downed power line or a tree that’s fallen on a house.

The outside shots of weather reporters on the scene are boringly the same whether it’s a hurricane or a snowstorm. When you’ve seen one video of snow falling on a street you’ve pretty much seen them all. The worst is when TWC reports on California wildfires. It’s always the same old shots of a burning ridge taken from five miles away or a plane dropping fire retardant. I’m convinced it’s stock footage of the same wildfire. I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell the difference between one California mountain ridge and another. (When isn’t there a wildfire in California threatening to burn homes? If it happens all the time is it really news? It would be newsworthy if some part of California was not burning.)

There was a time when people knew that snow storms and blizzards happened from time to time in the winter, and they accepted it as a fact of life. Only the really big storms got special recognition, and these were so rare that it was enough to refer to the year they happened, as in the Blizzard of ’49 or the Great Storm of 1908. Now, If TWC gets it way, every Tom, Dick, and Harry winter storm gets a name, and the really memorable ones will go down in history with wimpy names like Winter Storm Buffy or Chad or Lamont. If I were a real blizzard, I’d be embarrassed.

Who decides whether a storm is bad enough to get a name? According to TWC, the storm gets a name only if it is “disruptive” to people. What type of standard is that? Crying kids on airplanes, listening to Al Gore, and stepping in dog poop are disruptive to me, but they are hardly name worthy events. Unlike tropical storms and hurricanes that have definitive and measurable criteria, deciding whether a winter storm is disruptive or not seems awfully subjective to me. I like to wear cowboy hats so any heavy breeze is disruptive to me. Does that mean it deserves a name?

Who are the people who have to be disrupted in order for a storm to deserve a name? Are we talking about prissy little metrosexuals who work in air conditioned offices, drink latte coffee, and read the New York Times theater reviews or real manly men who work outside, drink convenience store coffee that’s been sitting in the pot for five hours, and read Guns and Ammo magazine?

The last big winter storm was called Pax. What the hell type of name is that? Is it a boy’s name or a girl’s name, or does it matter anymore? It sounds like the type of name that people in California give their kids. What wrong with good old American names like Billy, Mary, Abdul, Jesus, or Shanice, or really American names like Red Cloud, Black Elk, and Two Dogs F--king?

Did the folks at TWC think about the potential conflict that may arise by giving people names to winter storms and hurricanes? One day we could have Hurricane Lawanda and Winter Storm Lawanda in the same year.

If we have to name winter storms, let’s give them names that cannot be confused with hurricane names. One suggestion would be to use animal names. There are thousands of different mammals, fish, reptiles, and insects, so there would be no fear of having to repeat a name. Winter Storm Baboon, Winter Storm Flounder, and Winter Storm Dung Beetle are great names for winter storms. It would be easier to remember that you had snow up to your ass in Winter Storm Tufted Titmouse than in Winter Storm Charles.

Another, and perhaps better, suggestion would be to name winter storms after cartoon characters. You could have names like Winter Storm Goofy, Winter Storm Foghorn Leghorn, and Winter Storm Betty Boop. (For the record, I have always liked Foghorn Leghorn: “Son, I say, son, are you some kind of chicken hawk?”).

I say we should ignore any winter storm that The Weather Channel has given a name. It would be like the Amish practice of shunning. All we have to do is not acknowledge that Winter Storm Reggie or Dwayne or Keyshawn or whatever exists, and TWC will soon get the message that we are not going to play its game.

Local News

Meredith and I subscribe to the local paper, The News Observer—all 20 pages of it. The paper used to be published twice a week, but now it only comes out once a week. I could be funny and say that it went to being a weekly paper because it took people around here that long to read it, but that would suggest that the people in Fannin County are a bunch of ignorant hillbillies, and that’s not true. As much as it hurts me, I will resist the temptation of a cheap joke.

The true reason the paper went back to being a weekly is probably a lack of advertising revenue to support two editions a week. I suspect that a contributing factor was the absence of enough news in Fannin County to justify a second edition. Witness the front page of last week’s edition of the paper.

The lead front page story is about a Bald Eagle being rescued after being tangled in a fishing line. No offense to bird lovers, but you know you’re scratching for something to write about when freeing a bird is the lead story. Maybe the editor thought it was a mountain version of Free Willy, and that’s why it was considered the big news of the week.

The number two front page story is about a 15-year-old Pickens County Middle School basketball player who was accused of assaulting a Fannin County Middle School player during a basketball game. We’re not talking about the Olympics or the NBA or even a college game, but rather a middle school basketball game. What’s next—a feature about grade school kids getting into fights playing kickball during recess or maybe two first graders arguing over a game of marbles?

I suppose the News Observer thought it was newsworthy because some Pickens County parents attending the game said there were racial slurs involved in the altercation. School officials denied this after an investigation. I’m surprised that MSNBC and Al Sharpton haven’t jumped all over this big story. Maybe that’s because the facts of the incident are unclear. The story did not identify the race of the participants, the content of the alleged slurs, or even how the assault occurred. For a front page story, it sure was short on details.

The final story above the fold on the front page is about the Fannin County eighth grade student who won the annual 2014 countywide spelling bee. If a middle school spelling bee is front page news, I can’t wait to see what sort of treatment the winner of the annual science fair gets. The paper may put out a special edition. The next thing you know, I’ll be reading about quilting bees, knitting circles, corn huskings, and pie eating contests. No, wait, those are already covered on page three.

I’m not mocking the fact that the paper contains only local news. That’s the purpose of a local paper. All I’m saying is that if these three stories represent the most newsworthy events in Fannin County over the previous week, I can see why it’s tough to find sufficient news to produce a second edition. In order to fill a second paper, the News Observer would have to run stories on Aunt Betty’s hot flashes, missing chickens, and the theft of a cheap pen from the bank.

There has been some real news in Fannin County this week: the weather. The recent snowstorm left us with several inches of snow and icy roads. There have been traffic accidents and power outages. The Fannin County Emergency Operations Center has been texting weather and traffic alerts like a high school student over a new love affair. You would think the county had been invaded by the Mexican army from the number of text alerts that have been sent.

I’ll wager the News Observer editor and its reporters (all two or three of them) are in an orgiastic journalistic frenzy over having some real news to report.

It’s fair to conclude that there is not a lot happening in Fannin County most of the time. In fact, you could even say it’s boring around here. And you know what? I like it that way.

The News Observer is the only paper we have delivered. The available regional papers are the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and I see no reason to take either of them. It’s not like I’ll miss reading a major paper. I stopped subscribing to the Tampa Bay Times a couple of years before I left Florida, mainly because I thought its editorial board was a bunch of Communists.

Receiving only 20 or so pages of newsprint a week has caused a minor crisis in the household. We have been running out of newspaper to start the wood stove to heat the house. Meredith and I have taken to pilfering free advertising publications from display racks in order to keep the home fires going. I'm worried our actions will put a dent in the local real estate/cabin rental market.

Thank God for our financial adviser. He regularly sends us 80-page financial reports and prospectuses. I’m not sure why. He knows that I don’t understand them. All I understand is whether I have more or less than the last report. He could text that information to me and save a tree. I think he’s being cautious. My investment instructions to him are that if he loses my savings, I’ll burn down his house and kidnap his children. It’s always good when your financial advisor (or lawyer or doctor) knows that he or she has a stake in the game.

Even though I don’t read his reports, I’m glad he sends me all this information. I’ve discovered that his financial reports make great fire starters. Meredith and I might have frozen to death this winter if it weren't for my investments. I keep telling my kids that if they save their money they too can live in the middle of nowhere keeping themselves warm with a wood stove. It's something to aspire to.

Finally, here is an update on the Asian ladybug situation. As mentioned a couple of posts ago, a large number of Asian ladybugs have decided to spend the winter in the cabin. They send out small suicide scouting parties from time to time, apparently to see if spring has arrived.

Until recently they’ve been a minor nuisance, but now they’re interfering with my enjoyment of watching the Olympic hockey games. When a ladybug crawls on the flat screen TV, it becomes a little dot on the screen. The dot is the exact size of the hockey puck. It’s hard enough to follow the hockey action when there is one puck. It gets really confusing when there is an extra puck or two on the ice. I’ve missed several goals because I was watching the wrong dot. Thank goodness for instant replay.

Well, there you have it. To paraphrase Walter Cronkite: And that’s the way it is in Fannin County this week. Yawn. I guess I’ll go watch the snow melt.

Master Gardener Class



 I attended my first Georgia Master Gardener class a few days ago. The entire course consists of ten weekly classes of six hours each. There is even a mid-term and a final examination. If I pass the tests I will be a certified Master Gardener. I bet you’re impressed.

 

I was apprehensive about the class in the weeks leading up to it because I was not sure what to expect. 

 

It could have been one of those bullshit classes where ten minutes of hard information is stretched into two hours of blah, blah, blah, kind of like the infant care class that Meredith and I took when she was pregnant. I was expecting a lot of good information about how to care for your newborn, but after sitting there for an hour and half I learned only two things: hold your kid’s head up, and don’t drop your kid on the floor. The class was a waste of time. They could have put the important information on a fortune cookie slip and saved me the trouble. 

 

The other possibility was that the Master Gardner course would be really tough. I had a genuine concern that there would be an overwhelming amount of information to learn. I have not been in a true classroom setting since law school, and that was a long time ago. Back then I was a lean, mean learning machine able to cram reams of information into my head and retain it. Now I have trouble remembering my zip code, and I have to write notes to myself to remember what I’m going to do today. To be successful in school, you have to learn how to learn. I was worried that I had forgotten how to learn massive quantities of information.

 

I was also concerned that the information would be way over my head. I figured the course would be heavy on biology, botany, and horticulture. I stopped taking science courses after I flunked chemistry my first year in college. I was a political science major, took journalism courses, and attended law school. That’s not exactly a great foundation for a course heavy in science. 

 

This is a true story. As a young attorney, I read in a woman’s medical records that she had undergone a hysterectomy. I had no idea what a hysterectomy was, but I knew that an appendectomy was when they removed a person’s appendix. I spent the next two years trying to discover what a woman’s hyster was and where it was located. Now you will understand why I was apprehensive about the Master Gardener course.

 

My fears were heightened when I received the text book during class check-in. It is over 600 pages long. The first six chapters had titles like The Soil Ecosystem, Basic Botany, Plant Physiology, Plant Propagation, Basic Entomology, and Basic Plant Pathology. I figured I was screwed. I didn’t know what physiology meant, and I thought entomology was the study of the derivation of words. Flipping through the pages of the text book, I saw elaborate diagrams of plant parts, a bunch of Latin names, and organic chemistry formulas—not exactly light reading. I knew I was way out of my element. 

 

When we were all seated, I looked around the room at my classmates, all 43 of them. That calmed me down. None of them are spring chickens. My guess is that they are all retirees. I base this conclusion on three observations: (a) they all looked like old farts, (b) all the women laughed knowingly when the instructor made a hot flash joke, and (c) four of the six men in the class could not make it through an hour session without getting up to pee. 

 

I figure they are in the same boat as me when it comes to their last classroom experience. They probably spent their adult lives pursuing careers that had nothing to do with pathology, physiology or entomology. It will be just my luck that half of them are retired biology professors or horticulturalists.

 

So right then the competitive juices started flowing. I’ll be damned if a bunch of women with hot flashes and men with enlarged prostates are going to get the better of me. So now I’m aiming for class valedictorian. I want the big photo in the yearbook. I’ve given some thought to the title of my graduation speech. I’ve discarded “Master Gardeners: Breeding the Master Race” for obvious reasons. “Promoting Truth, Justice, and the American Way of Life through Master Gardening” sounds too pretentious. My current working title is “From Aphids to Zygotes: Master Gardeners at Work.”

 

There is an elderly lady who is in charge of the class, though she’s not a teacher. She started off with about a half an hour of introductory remarks. It was clear right away that she is a retired school teacher and grade school principal. I felt like I was in eighth grade home room. No, Ms. Cairns, I have not forgotten something to write with. Yes, Ms. Cairns, I brought a notebook. I was tempted to raise my hand with two fingers up to signify that I had to go number two just to see what would happen. I bet I would have gotten a hall pass.

 

They laid a lot of information on us that day about botany, plant physiology, and plant pathology. It was mostly interesting, but a little overwhelming. Did you know any of the following:

•  Eggplants and tomatoes are berries;  
• The three types of simple fruits are the berry, drupe and pome;
• Almonds, coconuts, olives, and peaches are drupes;
• Apples and pears are pomes; or
• A pepo is a berry fruit with a hard rind (cucumber, pumpkin, and squash), while a hesperidum is a berry fruit with a leathery skin (citrus fruits)?

I didn’t. I’m not sure how this information will be helpful to me, though from now on I’m going to ask for a slice of pepo pie to top off my Thanksgiving dinner. One thing’s for sure, I’m going to wow them if “berries” is ever a category on Jeopardy.

 

There is some stuff I learned that I really didn’t want to know. Was it necessary to tell us that when you eat a fruit, you’re eating a plant’s ovary? I don’t think I’ll be able to look at an apple or pear from now on without a disturbing vision coming into my head .

 

It will not be easy for me to be the valedictorian. I have a unique learning disability. My mind plays tricks on me. It always goes for the joke. For instance, when the instructor first used the term “gymnosperm”, the first thing that flashed in my head was that gymnosperm is part of the nasty residue left on a high school wrestling mat. I will need to overcome this problem if I want to graduate summa cum laude.

 

Anyway, I made it through the first class successfully. That only means that I did not make a fool of myself or get kicked out of class. Now I’m studying my ass off so that one day I can bear the proud title of Master Gardener.

Cold Weather

I saw on the news that the polar vortex that has been causing all this cold weather will end soon. Instead of dipping down into the United States, the jet stream will straighten out and follow its usual path across Canada. Average temperatures will return to normal throughout the South.

It’s about time. I’ve whined about the cold weather a lot in recent posts, so much so you would think that I’ve moved to the Aleutians rather than north Georgia. I admit to being a baby about the cold, but it’s been forty years since I’ve lived in a place this cold. I had forgotten what it was like. It sucks.

We had two mornings in January when the outside temperature in the morning was one degree. In case you’ve forgotten, one degree is 31 degrees below the freezing point of water. On the Celsius scale that’s -17 degrees. I’m glad we don’t use the Celsius scale in the United States. I’d be really cold if it was -17 C rather than 1 F.

(I’ve never really understood the Fahrenheit scale. Why is freezing 32 degrees? What was the determining factor for establishing zero degrees? Is it the temperature where snot freezes? Is that when your tongue sticks to metal? Maybe it’s the temperature where men’s testicles disappear.)

To give you an idea of what it has been like around here, the average morning temperature in January was 25 degrees. We’ve had several stretches where the temperature has not gotten above freezing for two or three days. I tried working on the stone wall recently, and I had to use a pickaxe to chip the rocks off the frozen ground.

The cold weather is starting to get to me.

Living in a cold place adds a layer of complexity to your daily life. In Florida, all I had to do to leave the house was throw on a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of flip-flops. If it was chilly, I would grab a sweatshirt. When I first came to Florida to go to graduate school, I remember how liberating it was not to have to wear winter clothing. More importantly, I remember how great it was that coeds did not have to wear winter clothing. It was hormonal heaven for a young man. I think the man who invented spandex should receive the Nobel Prize.

Here, at least in the last two months, going outside is a major production. I have to put on long pants, a t-shirt, a flannel shirt, a sweater, a coat, gloves, and a hat to leave the cabin for more than a minute or two. I never forget to put on a scarf in case I get trapped in my car and want to strangle myself.

The cold eliminates any spontaneity in going outdoors. You don’t just pop out for a walk or a quick trip to the store. Even a small thing like putting up the flag in the morning is a one act play because of the need to dress warmly against the cold. It’s like living in a space station. The world is divided into two zones—inside and outside—and you do not pass freely between them. When you live in Florida you don’t even think of things like this, but come here in winter, and you will soon understand.

Once I get all that warm clothing on, inevitable I get hot and have to start shedding layers when I get to where I’m going. I’ve put on coats and sweaters and taken them off more times in the last month than I did the entire time I lived in Florida. I’m beginning to feel like a stripper at Diamond Dolls. It gets old after a while.

Gloves are a bother. They are necessary to keep your hands warm, but try reaching into your pocket for your car keys when you’re wearing them. Better yet, try using a cell phone wearing a pair of gloves.

Keeping track of my gloves when I take them off is a hassle. If I stuff them in my coat pockets, I’m walking around with two bulges at my waist. I look like Captain Kangaroo or a marsupial with twins. If I hold my gloves in my hand that means that one hand is always occupied. I have developed great empathy for the proverbial one armed paper hanger.

I tried tying a pair of gloves together with a string like a pair of kid’s mittens so that they dangled from my wrists when I took them off. The problem was that the gloves kept slapping me in the face when I reached up to take off my hat or reach for an overhead item. I felt like Curley in a Three Stooges movie.

Our bedroom has a walk in closet located on the northeast corner of the cabin. On a cold morning, the closet is the approximate temperature of a meat locker. It’s so cold it’s uncomfortable to change clothes in it. I’ve gotten in the habit of running into the closet, grabbing whatever clothes come to hand, then running back into the bedroom to dress. I call it dash and dress. The result is that on most days I look like the poster boy for fashion blindness.

The cold has caused a big alteration in my habits. In the fall I usually was out of the cabin by 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. But there’s no point in leaving the cabin that early when the temperature is in the 20’s or below. It’s too cold to work. Now I typically stay inside until late morning when the temperature outside has gotten bearable. There are some days when there is no point going out at all.

Being cooped up inside so much is starting to make me stir crazy. I’m beginning to get cabin fever. I can watch TV or read only so much. I’ve started making cheese to pass the time. I’m turning out cheese like the Octomom turns out babies. If this keeps up, I figure I’ll have at least 100 pounds of cholesterol locked up in homemade cheese by the time spring rolls around.

The locals tell me that this weather is unusual and that winters are generally milder. I hope so. The weather is starting to get to me.

An uplifting message of hope. Just when I’m down and depressed because the weather is cramping my style, I get to pass this message on the sign board at the Mineral Bluff Baptist Church: “Men who seek God at the eleventh hour may die at 10:30.”

Thanks for reminding me. I appreciate the positive outlook. I hope you have a good day too.

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.