The election, sorghum flat bread and a forest fire

Fannin County participated in the election in a big way. Of 14,684 registered voters, 11,924 turned out to vote. That’s 81.2 percent. While turnout figures for this election are not yet available, Fannin’s County’s voter participation figure easily beat the nationwide averages in 2008 (62.3%) and 2012 (57.5%).

I suppose that’s predictable in a county where it’s not considered a political statement to fly the American flag, they’re not ashamed to say the Pledge of Allegiance, everyone stands respectfully when the National Anthem is played, and everyone knows the words to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Around here people honor our military and those who have served, view the United States as the land of the free and the brave and think that all lives matter. They believe in doing their civic duty, and voting is one of those duties.

It helped that that there are lot of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” in Fannin County—folks who believe that Washington, the liberal media and the egg-sucking intellectual establishment have overlooked or forgotten the concerns and problems of the average working Joe. And you know what? I’m okay with that. If you don’t like it, go live elsewhere. I’m sure you’ll fit in fine among the left-leaning wingnuts in California or one of the other blue states. Oh, and by the way, on your way out the door you can kiss my ass.

This is Small Town, USA, and there are a lot of other places just like it across the country. These are the places that the liberal media, big city elites and Hillary Clinton look down upon as being backward, unsophisticated and ignorable. The reason I know there are other places like this is because Small Town, USA, just rose up and taught the elite establishment a lesson.

Predictably, Trump got 9,622 votes or 81.79 percent of the vote in Fannin County. Hillary only got 16.32 percent (1,920 votes) and Gary Johnson got 1.89 percent (222 voters). Everyone around here is wondering who the hell the Gary Johnson voters are. If they are to the right of the local Tea Party Patriots they probably live in the woods, carry muzzle loading rifles and wear buckskins. If they are to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren they undoubtedly wish to remain anonymous.

Being on the conservative side of course I was pleased with the results of the election but it was for more than just policy reasons. If Hillary had been elected there would have been a run on guns and ammunition even worse than when Obama got elected the second time. Ammunition would have disappeared as quickly as wide screen televisions during a Detroit riot. I’m okay in the gun department but my ammo supplies are low. I meant to stock up before the election but never got around to it so I was kicking myself on election night. You can’t be too prepared. You never know when the revolution is going to start or the Cubans will invade or there will be a zombie apocalypse. Now I can take time to replenish the arsenal.

I guess I’m a little bit of a prepper. Some of my time up here is spent trying to learn the old way of doing things. Not only am I interested in such things from a historical standpoint but some day it may be good to know how they did it before electricity and supermarkets. For example, I’m learning how to make leather britches beans. These are air dried string beans that will last through the winter. To reconstitute them you have to boil them for a while. I’ve spoken to an older woman who knows the old ways. She remembers leather britches beans fondly from her childhood and says that when they are boiled with an old ham bone they are tasty. I talked to others who say they are taste like old shoe leather. I guess I’ll find out.

Along those lines, I grew a couple of rows of sorghum this summer. Think of a smaller version of sugar cane. Like sugar cane, the pithy core of a sorghum stalk has a high sugar content—as much as 16 or 17 percent. The old timers used to squeeze the juice out of the stalks, boil it down and make sorghum molasses. They still do. In fact, Blairsville, just to the east of us, has an annual sorghum festival.

Sorghum also produces seed heads with hundreds of seeds. Sorghum grain is one of the top five cereals in the world on the basis of production tonnage behind corn, rice, wheat, and barley. I harvested and winnowed the seeds, and now I will experiment with the grain. Just last night I made some sorghum flour by grinding the seeds in a coffee grinder and used the flour to make roti (also known as chapatti), an Indian flat bread. It wasn’t bad. I think it’s outrageously cool that I can grow an easily usable, edible grain.

Meanwhile, for the last month Fannin County has been on fire. The Cohuttas are a mountain range on the side of Fannin County, and there has been a forest fire raging in the Cohuttas for several weeks. It’s called the Rough Ridge fire, and the latest estimates are that it covers 6,000 acres. We have had an extremely dry summer, and all of North Georgia is in severe drought conditions. It hasn’t rained on my property for almost two months.

When the wind is from the west there’s a smoky haze in the air and the unmistakable smell of smoke. The satellite photo on this page shows the smoke from the Rough Ridge fire drifting south towards Atlanta from Fannin County. We live close to where the North Carolina/Tennessee line meets Georgia.

When I drive into Blue Ridge on Highway 515 there is a panoramic view of the Cohuttas. The other day there was not a cloud in the sky but over the Cohuttas there was a huge plume of gray smoke drifting off to the north. It reminded me of Mordor and Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings. I suppose that’s another reason to stock up on guns and ammo when you can. You never know when you’ll be attacked by Orcs and Goblins. The hell with swords, spears and arrows. I’m making my stand with high velocity hollow points.

So there you have it. I live in the land of deplorables, patriotism, conservatives, and forest fires, I can grow my own grain and make my own bread and I’m prepared to handle civil unrest, zombies, invading Cubans and Orcs. Who can ask for anything more?