Cold Weather

According to the almanac, the official start of winter is on the solstice which happens on December 21 at 12:11 p.m. this year. If that’s true, then winter has been practicing for opening day here in Fannin County.

It was below freezing and windy the day I started writing this post. The wind chill factor was 17 degrees. It did not get into the 40’s all day. The next day the morning temperature was 23 degrees. There were snow flurries and sleet on the day before Thanksgiving. As far as I’m concerned, that’s winter.

Winter weather means two things to me: cold and snow. I know that north Georgia experiences real winter weather. The average temperature in Fannin County in December and February is just above 30 degrees. The locals tell me that there have been winters when the temperature has dipped below zero for several days and there has been more than two feet of snow on the ground. By my definition, that’s real winter.

I lived up north until I was 22, so I know about snow, blizzards, cold, and ice. I went to college in Pennsylvania, and I remember weeks of frigid cold and lingering snow. I recall one bitterly cold day in January when a large group of us left the fraternity for early morning classes. Two or three fell on the ice on the porch and walkway and turned back before we got to the sidewalk. We lost another two or three climbing over the mounded snow left by the snowplows on our side of the street. A couple more abandoned the quest after falling on their asses crossing the icy street. Climbing over the mounded snow on the other side of the street took a similar toll. By the time we reached campus, a distance of a hundred feet or so, half the group had returned to the warmth of the frat house. It was like storming Omaha Beach. Casualties were high.

To people who live in the Northeast, the Midwest, or the Rockies, winter in the southern Appalachians must sound like a piece of cake, and I must sound like a big weenie for even talking about it.

But it’s what you are used to that matters. I lived in Florida for the last 40 years, and I’m not used to living and working in the cold. I’m used to balmy weather and wearing shorts and flip-flops in the winter. My body is good at sweating, not shivering. I’m also not as young, hardy, and bullet proof as I was in my college days. I’m sure I will adjust to cold weather, but it will take time.

The transition will be tougher for Meredith. She has lived in Florida all her life and has never been through a real winter. In her lifetime it has snowed a handful of times in Pinellas County, and what snow there was melted in minutes or hours.

Until I do adjust to the cold in these parts, I’ve got to be honest−it sucks.

My oldest son, Jake, drove up from FSU this weekend. On Sunday morning, the thermometer read 27 degrees, and the wind was blowing. Jake and I are early risers, and he headed out to the workshop before the sun rose to work on our dune buggy. I had no legitimate reason to be in the workshop that early, but I went with him. I think it was herd instinct on my part. I went because he went.

The workshop is not heated, and after five minutes my hands were so cold they were like clubs. The last thing I wanted to do was take my hands out of my pockets and touch a cold metal tool. My fingers were frozen claws. I don’t think I could have wrapped them around a tool even if I had wanted to. I bet that if I had picked my nose, my index finger would have frozen there. Try explaining that to the emergency room physician.

You know how when you are really cold you scrunch your neck down and try to cover your ears with your shoulders? That’s what I looked like. I could have booked myself in the freak tent on the county fair circuit as Jimmy, The Neckless Wonder.

At some point I couldn’t feel my toes, and I wondered whether there had ever been a reported case of frostbite in Georgia.

After a few more minutes I abandoned the idea of doing any work in the shop and started a roaring fire in the burn barrel next to the shop. I spent the next hour huddled next to it sucking down hot coffee like it was free beer at a frat party.

I tried to justify my discomfort as a bonding experience with Jake. Here we were, father and son, huddled around a fire on a frigid morning. It was so primal. I bet Neanderthal dads shared moments like this with their sons during that last great ice age. Then I recalled that the Neanderthals succumbed to the Cro-Magnons. It probably was because the Cro-Magnons were smart enough to stay in their warm shelters when it got cold.

Fortunately, it warmed up enough to be tolerable after the sun rose.

The whole experience has caused me to reexamine what my parental bonding obligations are. I’ve concluded that my obligation to bond with my sons diminishes in direct proportion to how cold it is.

The worst thing about the cold is peeing outdoors, at least for men. It’s like that classic thought experiment in physics where you contemplate an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Peeing outdoors requires you to contemplate ice cold fingers touching warm object. That is if you can find it under multiple layers of clothing.

My hope is that I will adjust to the cold quickly. I will need to if I get chickens, rabbits, or other critters that have to be fed and watered daily.

Learning to deal with cold weather is just another part of the experience of Yacavone in Georgia.

An Assessment of Retirement

I have been retired and living in north Georgia for two and a half months. When I left Pinellas County it was 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. As I write this in the pre-dawn hours, it is 28 degrees and 35 percent humidity. We’ve already had one morning when it was 15 degrees. Certain parts of my anatomy are debating whether to go south for the winter or just grit it out here.

Fall is over. The oaks continue to cling to some of their leaves, but it’s a losing battle. The bare, angular branches of the trees against the sky make the woods look skeletal. There is a sense of impending winter in the air. It is a good time to assess what I’ve learned so far about retirement, country life, and rural Georgia.

I’ve learned that Chapstick is my friend. The low humidity, wind, and cold have turned my lips into beef jerky. I’m told I will adjust to the lower humidity. I hope so. I feel like I’m walking around with big, pouty, shiny lips after I smear on the Chapstick. That’s a great look if you’re Mick Jagger, a kissing gourami, or a chimpanzee, but not so great when you’re standing in the tool department of Ace Hardware, and the local boys are wondering whether you’re wearing lip gloss. Can you say, “Squeal like a pig?”

I’ve learned to tell the temperature without a thermometer. If it’s 40 degrees or colder, my nose starts to run. I wear work gloves much of the time when I am outdoors, and I swipe constantly at my dripping nose with my gloved hands. My nose is now red and chapped. I look like a rummy. I imagine W.C. Fields’ nose looked like mine. With my red nose and big pouty lips, maybe I should get big flapping clown shoes and complete the picture.

We have been using our wood stove to heat the cabin. I’ve learned that if I want to wake up to a warm cabin in the morning, I’m the one who has to get out of bed in the middle of the night to add wood to the stove. Meredith isn’t going to budge from her toasty bed.

I am becoming a maestro of the wood stove. I can nurse a load of wood into eight hours of steady heat. Now if I can only remember that the handle to the stove gets hot enough to brand cattle. I try to be quiet when I stoke the stove in the wee hours of the morning but I frequently forget that the handle is hot and burn my fingers. I bellowed so loud the other night that the neighbor’s dogs started barking, and they’re over a quarter of a mile away. It certainly startled our cat; we had to pry her off the ceiling.

I’ve learned that overalls are functional garments, and I wear mine all the time. They have plenty of pockets, keep the dirt out, and are warm. A lot of men here wear them, especially the old timers, so you don’t feel like a rube.

I do have a suggestion to improve them. They have a button fly. When you really have to pee and your hands are cold, it’s a bitch to unbutton the buttons. If you’ve ever worn a snowsuit you’ll know what I mean. I’d replace the buttons with a giant zipper and attach a strong rip cord to the zipper pull. I’d put a patch next to the fly that said, “Pull only in an emergency.” I know it would look odd having a giant string hanging down over your crotch, but it would be practical and prevent accidents. It may even become a fashion statement. Imagine brightly colored tassels fluttering around down there. I’d call it the ripper zipper look.

There is a drawback to overalls. They trap gas. Wearing them can be dangerous after an evening of Mexican food and a few beers. I was wearing overalls the other day with the legs tucked into my boot tops, and I let one rip. I thought my boots were going to fly off. I think overalls should have emergency blow out vents in the back.

I’ve learned that making cheese is not as easy it looks. Mozzarella is one of the easiest cheeses to make. I’ve tried to make it twice and failed both times. It is humbling to realize that a Sicilian goat herder with a third grade education living in a stone hut can make cheese, and I can’t. It’s the same feeling you get when your kid can turn on the disc player and you can’t. I need to locate someone around here who knows what they are doing cheese-wise and get some hints.

I’ve learned that there is a big difference between the little backyard garden I had in Florida and the big, serious garden I’m planning to have here. The time and effort I’m spending just to get rid of the rocks is way more than I anticipated. The local gardeners tell me that I will never get all the rocks out of this soil. They say that every year more rocks will come to the surface. In a way, that relieved me. I was beginning to believe that the number of rocks in my garden was divine punishment for my sins. I haven’t kept count of my sins over the years, but I did not think there were that many. Maybe working 37 years as a lawyer added to the count. It’s been a long time since I read the Inferno, but I would not be surprised if Dante placed lawyers somewhere in the lowest levels of hell just above politicians, parking meter readers, and daytime television programmers.

I’ve learned that you are more aware of earth’s other creatures when you live in a rural area: hawks and crows, hummingbirds and woodpeckers, deer and raccoons. In my case the list includes infestations of limping daddy long legs, weather predicting wooly caterpillars, zombie squirrels, and swarming ladybugs. I can’t wait to see what’s next−singing dung beetles, belching toads, kamikaze cicadas, farting stink bugs?

More than anything, I’ve learned that retirement is great. I do not miss work one bit. When I said I was retiring, some folks told me that I would miss work and go crazy with nothing to do. Let me get this right. I’m going to miss dealing with cantankerous judges, opposing attorneys who are jerks, Tampa Bay traffic, deadlines, working on weekends, stress, and pressure. Are you nuts?

I know that some people take so much enjoyment in their work that they cannot conceive of doing something else. There are probably long time trial attorneys who still find the practice of law enjoyable. Hell, there are people in India who take great pleasure in driving nails through their nipples and hanging heavy weights from their scrotums. But I suspect that for most of us the profession that we’ve chosen eventually grows wearisome. The exception may be operating a strip club, but I digress.

I don’t think not having anything to do will be a problem. I start every day with a list of things to accomplish, and by the time evening rolls around, I find that I have not made it through the list. Part of the reason for that is because I keep getting sidetracked on spur of the moment whims like making a walking stick or seeing if I can convert an old piece of metal into a Viking axe or learning to sharpen a saw that I will probably never use.

These side ventures are not significant accomplishments or even useful on the grand scale of things. Some would say they are a childish waste of time. But that’s the secret and the joy of retirement: I have the time to indulge childish urges. When people say to me that I will go crazy for things to do in retirement that tells me they have lost the playfulness and imagination they had as a child and forgotten the childish pleasure of doing something just for the hell of it. This may be selfish, but I view retirement as my time of life, a time to indulge childish pleasures, do foolish things, and smell the roses.

Lost and Confused

I thought I had a good sense of direction, but driving around here in Fannin County is convincing me otherwise. In Florida I always had a sense of where I was in relation to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s easy to orient yourself when you have a huge body of water to the west. It also helps that most roads in Florida run north and south or east and west.

My sense of direction seems to have deserted me here in Fannin County. There is no large body of water to provide orientation. The most significant geographic features are mountains, and there are a lot of those in all directions.

The cabin faces some large mountains. When we first started coming up here I thought the cabin faced north because I assumed that any mountains had to be in the direction of North Carolina and Tennessee. It took me seven years to realize that there were mountains between here and Atlanta and that the cabin faced south. You would think that at some point I would have realized where east and west were based on where the sun rose and set. Sometimes I can be such a Danny Dumbass. Obviously, I'm no Daniel Boone.

Of course it doesn’t help your sense of direction when the roads twist and turn in all directions. Even if you are oriented when you start, after a few turns you’re lucky if you can point to your ass.

Even when I know where a particular route starts and ends from studying a map, I’m often amazed at the result. Maybe there is an unusual space/time warp around here that does strange things to the geography.

Sometimes I get confused even after studying a map. There are a lot of roads that have an “old” version of the road. For instance, there is Dial Road and Old Dial Road, Cashes Valley Road and Old Cashes Valley Road, and Field Road and Old Field Road. Sometimes the “old” road is not located in the same part of the county as the “new” road at which point it’s a mystery to me why they named the new road after the old road. Maybe the roads are not named after each other but rather after people. Maybe there was a Mr. Dial and an older fellow by the name of Dial; hence, Dial Road and Old Dial Road. Whatever the reason, it’s confusing as hell.

Adding to the confusion are the areas of the county that are not even marked on a map but are well known to locals, like Epworth and Hemptown. One old fellow told me he lived in Hemptown. I could not find Hemptown on a map of the county. I finally figured out where it was when I got lost (imagine that) one day.

There are three areas in the county known as Booger Hollow, Hells Hollow, and Snake Nation. As you have probably deduced, you will not find them identified on a map. According to one source, Hells Hollow got its name when a family saw a man stagger out of a hollow. When they asked him where he had been, he replied, “Hell.” Snake Nation allegedly got its name from a Cherokee clan that lived there. I have no idea how Booger Hollow got its name, and I am almost afraid to ask. I was told that there was an area known as Mule Shit Hollow, but the name was changed for obvious reasons. I’d have given anything to have Mule Shit Hollow as an address.

I have always had a fascination with place names. When I travel I like to peruse a map for unusual or descriptive names for cities and towns, roads and streets, and geographical features. Fannin County has its share of interesting place names.

There are a lot of hollows and hollers. There’s Channing Hollow Road, Gork Holler Road, Happy Hollow Road, Hidden Hollow Drive, Hillbilly Hollow Road, Misty Hollow Road, and Old Hollow Road. I suppose Possum Hollow Road was inevitable, but I am surprised there is no Sleepy Hollow.

Roads with the name “bear” in them are popular. There’s Bear Claw Road, Bear Cub Trail, Bear Den Road, Bear Track Trail, and Bear Walk Road, to name some of them. I assume someone was trying to be clever or was a lousy speller when he or she named Bear Foot Drive. My favorite is Bear Walks Medicine Path.

If you’re into cheap wine and lousy hangovers, there’s Boons Farm Road. Keeping with the theme, Fannin County has Boot Legger Road, Bourbon Street, Moonshine Mountain Road, and Moonshine Ridge Road. There is also Wild Turkey Lane, but this could have been named for the bird rather than the bourbon.

I’d like to know the story behind Bushy Head Gilmer Road. Was it named after a man with a full head of hair? There’s also a Bushy Head Lane, Bushy Head Road, and Bushy Head Fannin Road.

I’m not sure I want to visit Chigger Ridge Road, Critter Road, or Blue Tick Road, and it’s probably better to stay away from Shotgun Alley and Cops Road.

Roads with names that appear to be from the old days are Coon Gap Road, Cut Cane Road, and Hardscrabble Road. I particularly like Lickskillet Road.

I pass Trotsalot Road when I drive into Blue Ridge. I speculate that the person who named it rode horses a lot or had a recurring stomach ailment.

You can stroll down Memory Lane and visit Dew Drop Lane, but I recommend you avoid The Forest Has Eyes Road.

I don’t know what to think of Elvis Presley Boulevard. From what I’ve seen, there is not a road in the county that deserves to be called a boulevard.

I intend to find out how Black Ankle Creek, Hot House Creek, Fightingtown Creek, and Crusher Creek got their names.

The bottom line is that if you come to Fannin County be prepared to be lost and confused. Bring a GPS device, a map, and a compass. An emergency radio and signaling flares may be in order too. Otherwise, you may get lost on the back roads and never return.

Driving The Back Roads

The back roads here are really something. They are not flat and straight like the roads in Florida; rather, they go up and down and turn left and right, often all at the same time. This is not the place for you if you get car sick or have trouble with roller coasters or state fair rides. They don’t need to warn you about the dangers of texting while driving in this county. It would be suicidal to try it on the back roads. Besides, it’s impossible to text and drive with both hands gripping the steering wheel in terror.

Around here, when they put up a sign that says “Dangerous Curve”, they really mean it. I went around one curve the other day and almost ran into myself. I don’t know who decides whether a curve merits a “Dangerous Curve” sign and I don’t know what the criteria are, but the standard must be high. I think the county road department has to be convinced that death is almost certain if a driver doesn’t slow down before it will put up a warning sign. That means that curves that will only cripple and maim you are routine and unmarked. Comforting thought.

Not only are the back roads meandering, but most of them are so narrow that two cars can barely pass. Some are even narrower than that; they are basically paved wagon paths. Most of the back roads do not have a line down the center to distinguish your lane from the oncoming lane. I think that’s because there is no distinction. It’s first-come, first-serve around here. They say that possession is nine-tenths of the law; the same is true of the country roads in this area.

Most of the back roads have ditches and steep drop-offs on both sides. People up here favor large pickup trucks, often with dual rear wheels. It’s a butt-puckering experience when you encounter one of those road hogs coming the other way on a narrow country lane. I had to use a crowbar to pry my ass cheeks apart after one recent drive. I’m thinking of adding a change of underwear to my vehicle emergency kit.

Even when the lanes are marked, people here have a disconcerting habit of cutting the corners. You haven’t lived until you’ve almost died when a utility truck comes around a corner on your side of the road. My theory is that the number of close near death experiences on the back roads accounts for the number of churches in this area. There is a small Baptist church every mile or so around here. I bet every one of them has a person on his knees thanking the Lord for allowing him to survive a trip to get a loaf of bread. A good name for a local Catholic church would be Our Lady of the Close Call. They say there are no atheists in foxholes; I suspect there are few atheists on Fannin County back roads.

Because the back roads are the only way to get to most properties it is not uncommon to see large service and delivery trucks and even larger tractor-trailers hauling logs on them. One of them could snuff out my little truck in a heartbeat. If that should ever happen, my hope is that I’m taken out by a truck hauling Moon Pies or RC Cola. I’d hate to have my obituary read that I was crushed by a septic tank pumper (“You Dump, We Pump”). My friends, who lack any degree of sensitivity, would have a field day with the jokes.

The scenery is a distraction. Most everywhere you look around here is a scene that could go on a post card or a cheesy calendar. The problem is that you don’t dare to take your eyes off the road to take in the view. They should add a feature to car GPS systems that describes what you would see if you are courageous enough to look. It would say something like, “Off to the right, if you are foolish enough to look and do not mind ending up in a ditch, is a quaint babbling brook.” Better yet, it could say, “You are passing a classic Appalachian barn on your left. Based on your speed, I estimate that you have a forty percent chance of surviving if you want to take a peek.”

Another complication is the wildlife. You never know when you’re going to encounter an animal on a back road. If you follow this blog, you know about the squirrels. There are other critters as well, including deer, possum, raccoons, dogs, and cats. The squirrels are the most prevalent and the worst. They are either fearless, stupid or possessed. I saw one leisurely crossing a busy four lane divided highway the other day. Several people have told us that when you come up on a squirrel in the road you can speed up or slow down, but you should never swerve. I can’t figure out whether this advice is to prevent you from going into a ditch or to keep the squirrel from getting confused.

Driving around here at night can creep you out. There is nothing lonelier than a back country road at night. It brings out your primal fears of the night time. There are no street lights, and there is little traffic. Your headlights eerily illuminate the trees and bushes on the side of the road as the road twists and turns. You start to wonder what lurks at the edge of the light. Every urban myth comes to mind, especially the one about the high school couple necking in a car on a rural road who encountered an escaped madman with a hook on one arm. I’ve made it a rule never to stop on a back road and make out with a high school girl.

I’m always on the lookout for a pair of eyes staring back at me from the edge of the road or a deer jumping in front of me when I drive at night. And in the back of my mind there is the “I know it doesn’t exist, but please don’t scare the shit out of me” chance of encountering the large, hairy shape of a Bigfoot crossing the road. I’m not even going to talk about the possibility of being abducted by a UFO and being probed by aliens. That stuff never happens in the city. It’s always in a rural area on a back road. It takes some cojones to drive at night on the back roads around here.

I drove on country roads in Pennsylvania and Kentucky as a young man so I’m used to them. Meredith has lived all her life in Florida and is only familiar with flat and straight roads. She’s not exactly an adventurous driver under the best of circumstances, but get her on a back road, and she turns into Ma Kettle. I never noticed how cautiously she drove in Florida because it is impossible to go anywhere fast in Pinellas County.

To be honest, it drives me nuts to drive with her on a country road. A couple of weeks ago she drove as we explored some of the back roads. At first I thought she was joking with me. Then I thought she was trying to piss me off on purpose. We were being passed by wooly caterpillars and crippled squirrels. The fall foliage changed in the course of that drive. I’m fairly certain that wagon trains and cattle drives moved at a faster pace. I kept my mouth shut which shows that I learned something in my thirty plus years of marriage. Now I bring something to read whenever she drives the back roads. I read three chapters of Moby Dick between here and Blue Ridge the other day. I dread driving with her when the roads to get icy in a winter storm. I’m going to bring a change of clothes and a book of crossword puzzles. I may be able to learn another language before we arrive at our destination.

I shouldn’t complain. Instead of boring drives to the store, I get heart-pounding road adventures every time I go somewhere. It adds a little zest to your life. Driving the back roads is one more thing that makes living here a different experience.

Summer Is Over

Meredith and I are finally getting settled in, and we’re starting to develop routines. My routine is to head out to the workshop, a.k.a., the Man Cave, early in the morning and stay out there most of the day. That way I don’t get in Meredith’s hair and vice versa.

This part of this post is being written early in the morning in the workshop at a little writing spot I’ve set up. The sun is just starting to come up, and it’s a damp, foggy fall morning. The temperature is 50 degrees, and I’ve got my little electric heater going. It’s quite comfortable.

Meredith just texted me from the cabin that a group of young deer was working its way toward the workshop. Sure enough, I can see six deer out the window I’m facing. They are browsing in the upper pasture about 100 feet away. Every moment or so one of them looks up in my direction, stares for a few seconds, twitches its tail, and goes back to grazing. It’s probably trying to figure out the strange light shining from the workshop windows. 

I acknowledge Meredith’s text, and she texts back that their parents have probably been killed by hunters. I think watching Bambi as a child had a profound effect on her. I was more a Davy Crockett type of guy. I doubt the deer’s parents have been killed by hunters. I think it is more likely that this is the time of year when young deer are kicked out of the family. It’s like me sending my kids off to college. The good news is that under Affordable Care Act, the young deer can stay on their parents’ insurance.

It’s safe to say that it is no longer summer here in the north Georgia mountains. The temperature was 24 degrees in the garden at 5:30 in the morning the other day. I know this because the remote sensor I installed near the garden broadcast the temperature to a monitor in the kitchen. I don’t want to give you get the false impression that I dragged my ass out there to get the reading. Hell no. I was in the kitchen watching the morning news on television broadcast via Direct TV while wearing my flannel snuggies and sipping a hot cup of coffee that our automatic coffee maker brewed to be ready the second I rolled out of bed.

I know that I said that one of my objectives in moving here was to learn the old way of living and doing things. I also know that automatic temperature sensors and coffee makers and satellite television is not the way our forefathers lived. In my defense, I never said I wanted to live like the colonial Americans did. I’m curious, not nuts.

I know that it’s no longer summer here, but I don’t know whether to say that it’s fall or autumn. I have come to appreciate that there is a difference between the two. On an autumn day the air is cool and the sky is clear. The leaves on the trees display brilliant autumn colors of red, yellow, and orange. Dried cornstalks stand tall in the fields. High overhead you can hear the shrill scree, scree call of a red tailed hawk as it circles looking for a meal. Fallen leaves dance and tumble merrily in your wake when you drive down a country road. You want to be outdoors. An autumn day marks the end of summer; it is a time of harvest and thanksgiving, and the mood is joyful.

A couple of days ago we had what I consider our first fall day. Low gray clouds heavy with moisture scudded across the sky. The air was chilly and damp. Rain drizzled intermittently, and a gusting breeze blew dead brown leaves out of the trees and along the ground. The harsh caws of crows could be heard among the trees in the lower pasture. It was a harbinger of coming winter, and the mood was foreboding and ominous. It was a day for staying indoors, reading a book, and hot soup.

It is not an original observation that Floridians and city dwellers do not experience the weather and changing seasons as intimately as country folk. In the short time I have been living here I find that I am more attuned to the weather and the seasons. There are good reasons for this. I live in a place where there are distinct seasons. I am retired and have the leisure to stop and appreciate the weather; I am not rushing to the office or to court with a mind full of things I need to do. I am outdoors most of the day rather than cooped up in a temperature controlled environment. Many of my activities, such as gardening, brush clearing, wood chopping, and the like, are affected by the weather.

Perhaps this is why I now appreciate that there is a difference between an autumn day and a fall day. I have to believe that primitive man and the early settlers to this country were similarly affected and impacted by the weather and the seasons. In this sense, my experiment is starting to bear fruit, and I am beginning to learn the old ways of living and doing things.

An infestation. As if the squirrels, spiders, and wooly caterpillars weren’t enough, we are now experiencing an invasion of ladybugs. No exaggeration, there are thousands of ladybugs crawling on the outside walls of our cabin and thousands more swarming in the air around the cabin. Meredith tried to blow them off the cabin with a leaf blower, but they just came back.

All this occurred in one day. They started arriving mid morning. By mid afternoon the ladybug convention was in full swing. I’m a little vague on the Bible, but wasn’t a swarm of ladybugs one of the plagues that God visited on Egypt? Maybe that was locusts. At any rate, I now have an idea of what that was like.

According to the guy who hooked up our emergency generator, this happens every fall. They never said anything about that in the brochures. The ladybugs, sensing that winter is approaching, look for a warm protected spot to spend the winter. Not all houses and areas are affected. Apparently the ladybugs have decided to spend the winter at our house this year. I’m honored, but no thanks.

All I know about ladybugs is that they are cute and loveable, they don’t bite, and they eat aphids. Given the number of ladybugs that are currently roosting on the walls of my cabin I doubt there is an aphid in Fannin County.

One or two ladybugs is okay. Thousand of ladybugs is an infestation. They land on your glasses, crawl into your clothes, and fly into your ears. They enter the house when you open a door. They are driving the dog nuts. They are driving me nuts.

We are researching to see if there is anything that can be done. So far we have not found a solution. The electrician mentioned that there may be a pheromone you can buy that sexually attracts the ladybugs. The idea would be to place this pheromone someplace away from the house to lure the ladybugs away.

I don’t know if that’s a good idea. If our information is correct, they are attracted to our cabin because it is a warm place to spend the winter. So now we are going to put out something that will attract them sexually. Won’t that just attract more ladybugs (and horny ones at that) and add to our problem? What happens when they are all sexed out? I think they are going to want to roll over and go to sleep in a warm place which means our cabin is back on their radar.

I can’t wait to see what else nature is going to throw at us. Do they have lemmings in north Georgia?

I Start Working On My Garden

Now that I’ve figured out where I want to put my garden, I need to prepare the soil. I understand in theory what needs to be done, but I don’t quite know how to do it in practice. So I went to tractor dealership where I bought my tractor to nose around. I spoke with a good old boy behind the service desk, and he said that the first thing I need to do with a virgin field is use a subsoiler to break up the hard pan and uproot the rocks. So now I am the proud owner of a subsoiler attachment for my tractor.

A subsoiler is a large, sturdy crooked steel finger that is dragged behind the tractor and digs 8 to 12 inches into the ground ripping up rocks, roots, and dirt. The object of the exercise is to drag it back and forth until every inch the garden has been rooted up.

Being the over-achiever that I am, I not only go back and forth, but I go sideways and diagonally when I subsoil. I’ve done it every day for the past week. I’m not sure you’re supposed to do it that much, but since it’s the only garden attachment I have for the tractor at present, I’m going to get my money’s worth out of it. I’ve become the Rain Man of subsoiling. As you can imagine, I have subsoiled the hell out of that garden. It looks like a giant hog has rooted though it. I don’t think a cluster bomb could have torn it up more.

Using the subsoiler is not for the faint of heart. It’s okay if you just go back and forth, but when you go sideways over ground you have already torn up it becomes an adventure. Imagine bouncing down the stairs on your ass while simultaneously being shaken violently by a giant. That’s about what it feels to drive a tractor over ground that has been ripped up by a subsoiler. I bounce up and down, jerk back and forth, and get whipsawed in all directions as the tractor lurches over the uneven ground. I look like I’m riding a Brahma bull. I can barely hang on to the wheel and stay in the seat. Now I know why tractors have seatbelts. I feel like a subsoiler should come with a safety helmet, Kevlar body armor, and motion sickness pills.

Thank God I don’t have hemorrhoids, though I may have lost a few fillings and ruptured my spleen. I have to stop every 20 minutes to give my kidneys a rest. When I had back surgery my orthopedic surgeon gave me a list of things I should not do. I’m pretty sure that operating a tractor with a subsoiler was at the top of the list. I think it came right before having a high speed head-on collision and jumping out of a plane without a parachute. I’m telling you, using a subsoiler is brutal.

Walking across ground that has been ripped up by the subsoiler is no fun. The soil is so uneven and torn up that you stumble and stagger across the ridges, furrows, holes, and rocks like a drunken sailor. I must look like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz as I cross the garden. I haven’t had this much trouble walking since my bachelor party. My neighbors across the valley must think I have a drinking problem. Who knew that gardening was so rigorous?

The soil here is rocky, and I have to get the rocks out of the garden to be able to use a rototiller. The subsoiler has turned up so many rocks that I’m worried I’ll end up with a big hole once I get them all removed. I think the rocks may be holding up the soil. The frustrating thing is that after I pick up all the rocks I can find, another pass with the subsoiler turns up just as many. I’ve checked to make sure the rocks I’ve removed aren’t migrating back to the garden. Maybe Meredith is sneaking out at night and throwing them back just to get me out of the house.

Picking up rocks is not good for my back. After an hour or so of rock collecting, it stiffens up, and I hobble around like the plaintiff in a personal injury case. I’d make a good extra on the Walking Dead. Thank goodness for motrin and alcohol.

I started out gathering rocks that were the size of an egg or larger. After several days of collecting rocks, my concern for the rototiller has diminished and my concern over the health of my lower back has increased. Now I only remove a rock if it is big enough to carve Mt. Rushmore on.

Whoever said there is nothing wrong with good hard work probably never did hard work. If it’s so great, how come you never see an ad in the classifieds that says: “Looking for good hard work. Will do it for free.”? The person who said that hard work is good for you needs to pay me a visit so I can set his ass straight. The person who said that working in a garden is relaxing and restful got it half right. What's relaxing and restful is the four motrin and half a bottle of bourbon you have to consume to make the back pain go away.

I’ve developed a lot of respect for the pioneers who first settled this area. Not only did they have to deal with rocky soil to grow their crops, but they had to cut down the trees and pull out the stumps. I read somewhere that early Americans consumed a phenomenal amount of alcohol per person. I think I know why−no motrin.

Now that I’ve subsoiled and assured myself of developing degenerative arthritis, I will move to the next step. I just wish I knew what it is. I think I’m supposed to disc and harrow the field, or maybe it’s plow, harrow and disc, or maybe it’s disc, plow, harrow, and do the hokey pokey. It would help if I knew what the hell those terms meant and in what order they go. I need to talk to that old boy at the dealership again. I’m sure there is something else he would like to sell me that will be good for the garden and bad for my health. I just want to get in one good crop before I’m in a wheelchair.

I Go For A Nature Walk

Meredith and I signed up for a two hour nature walk to look at wildflowers and native plants. The walk was put on by the Fannin County Master Gardner program. I know that a wildflower nature walk sounds like a lame thing to do. It certainly is out of character for me. I’m more of a gun show, tractor pull, demolition derby type of guy. To tell the truth, after I signed up I felt like I should run out and buy a t-shirt that said “I’m a big wussy.” I need to get over feeling like that and let my sensitive side shine through. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that I may need to drop my drawers to find it.

The announcement warned that we should wear appropriate clothing and shoes and bring a hat, water, and insect repellant. That seemed a little much to me. It’s only a two hour nature walk, not a six day, long range patrol behind enemy lines in Cambodia.

I debated what to wear. My first thought was to go full military: Camo BDU’s, combat boots, boony hat, night vision goggles, ghillie suit, two canteens, and an AR-15. I thought about wearing camouflage paint on my face to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie “Predator.” I wanted to be prepared in case the group ran into an angry Bigfoot or a crazed zombie squirrel. I’ve heard that some of the native plants can be dangerous.

It occurred to me that looking like I was a member of Seal Team Six might be a little over the top for a party of wild flower enthusiasts. I needed to tone it down. So I thought about going with a classic English adventurer look: Knee socks, khaki shorts and shirt, and a white pith helmet. But I realized I’d look like a Bahamian policeman directing traffic, so I tossed that idea out.

I lived in Germany for several years. Maybe lederhosen, mountain boots, and a tyrolean hat would be appropriate. I could bring some Swiss chocolate and entertain the group with a few glockenspiel tunes. Unfortunately I cannot yodel worth a damn. On reflection, the Bavarian burgomeister idea just didn’t seem right.

In the end I opted for hiking boots, shorts and a denim shirt. I brought my walking stick and leather backpack. I looked like a large, middle-aged hobbit I think.

Meredith and I showed up at the appointed time and place. The group was mostly retirees. There were only two other men besides me which is further support for the big wussy idea. I’m pretty sure one guy was dragged there by his wife. He kept wandering off by himself. I figured he had a bladder problem or simply wanted to catch some internet porn on his i-phone while his wife was focused on wildflowers. The other guy was old and needed a cane to walk. He was also deaf which seemed to me to defeat the purpose of the walk.

Two older ladies sporting master gardener badges were in charge. There was another knowledgeable woman who I think was also a master gardener. To break the ice I commented that I had signed up for the master gardener course and noticed that their badges referenced the University of Georgia. Since I am a Florida Gator fan, I was wondering whether I could get a badge that didn’t say anything about the University of Georgia if I passed the course. They reacted like I had crapped on their peonies. Evidently having a sense of humor is not a prerequisite to be a master gardener. I faded to the back and tried to hide behind my walking stick.

We started out by walking a short way up hill only to find that the power company had clear cut a 30 yard wide section of woods. It looked like Iwo Jima after the battle. There was moaning and wailing from the master gardeners about the callous destruction of nature. I bet the guy who built the retirement home up the hill didn’t think that way. Apparently the devastated section was where some of the plants that they wanted to show us were located. That discombobulated them for a while, but they recovered quickly.

They pointed out a small nondescript plant nestled in with other small nondescript plants. I think they may have been called it a Newton’s Dingleberry or a Pink-spotted E Pluribus Unum. The instructor said that it had flowers that bloom in the spring that are so small that you have to get on your hands and knees to see them. Fat chance. The only way that I’m going to be crawling around on my hands and knees in unfamiliar vegetation is if I have too much to drink.

The instructors were a little disorganized. They handed out a list of plants with their common and scientific names. The list was not in alphabetical order so when they identified a plant everyone would stop and scan through the list to find what the instructor was talking about. Then they started identifying plants that were not on the list. This really screwed people up. I gave up on that exercise real quick.

They were big on using the scientific names for the plants. Instead of saying that something was a Rosey Pig’s Ass, they would say something like, “This is a Porkus Buttocki Rosatta.” Then they started to correct each other, “No, I think that’s a Pudenda Cacciatori.” It was like horticultural trivial pursuit. I thought it was A Lotta Bullshitta.

Half the time you couldn’t hear what they said. “Did she say Aesculus Parvifloria?” “No, I think she said Aesculus Pavia.” I started making up names to help the people in the back of the group. I’m pretty sure that some of them think they can now identify a Medulla Oblongata, a Testicalus Giagantium, and a Homo Erectus.

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get too much out of the walk. I now can tell the difference between an American Beech and a River Birch, but that’s about it. (I was going to go for an alliterative gag here about the bitch, the beech, and the birch, but it was too much of a stretch). The fact of the matter is that I only have four questions when it comes to wild plants: Will it give me a rash, is it edible, can I make a poison arrow out of it, and does it produce a useful wood?

Even though I learned nothing that interested me, I’ll sign up for the next wildflower walk in the spring. First, I think you are required to do stuff like that when you are retired. If only I could find a shuffleboard court. Second, there is entertainment value in almost anything that human beings do.