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.

More Squirrels and a Homecoming

In past posts I have discussed my theory that the squirrels in north Georgia are either stoned or, more likely, zombies. Those are the only two explanations I can come up with to explain their lethargic response to approaching cars and their strange behavior like trying to bury their nuts in an overhead power line. Two recent letters to the editor in the local paper support my suspicions that the squirrels here are not normal.

Randy Hanzlick of Blue Ridge wrote that he and his wife boat regularly on Lake Blue Ridge, and “in the last two weeks we have seen something we haven’t seen before … squirrels swimming in the middle of the lake nowhere near the shore.” He commented that it “seems odd we have not seen this in the past and now it’s like an epidemic.”

I’ve heard that all mammals swim, even elephants and cats, but squirrels swimming in the middle of a lake is something else. We’re not talking about a back yard kiddy pool. Lake Blue Ridge is a big lake. My son and I have gotten lost on it. While I’m sure that squirrels occasionally fall into the water, I would think that a squirrel’s first instinct would be to head for the nearest shoreline, rather than strike out for a distant shore like some rodent Diana Nyad.

Significantly, Mr. Hanzlick has never seen squirrels swimming in the middle of the lake before, and now they are an “epidemic.” I’m surprised the major news networks have not descended on Lake Blue Ridge in droves to cover this odd phenomenon since they seem to prefer fluff news to real news. I guess their reporters don’t read the News Observer regularly.

In the same issue of the paper, under the heading, “Road count of dead squirrels yields hundreds”, Nick Kimberly of McCaysville commented on the number of dead squirrels he has seen on Fannin County roads. He wrote that “the number of squirrels who never made it to the other side” has “skyrocketed,” and that “we seem to have a suicidal squirrel situation in our area.” He also observed that while the number of dead squirrels on the road has “rapidly increased,” the number of dead possums has declined dramatically.

Now you may poke fun at Mr. Kimberly and think that he has too much free time on his hands if he is taking a census of dead squirrels and possums. You may also conclude that that he needs to get a life, but I believe his observations provide further evidence that there is something unusual about the local squirrel population.

The absence of possum carcasses on the roads is easily explained. Like the wooly caterpillars, they are leaving town because of the influx of bizarre squirrels.

I cannot confirm the methodology Mr. Kimberly used in making his count. I suspect that in some cases it may be difficult to tell whether you’re looking at a squashed squirrel or a squashed possum. For accuracy’s sakes I hope he divided his road kill finds into at least three categories: squirrel, possum, and mush. Regardless, the numbers are striking and lend credence to my theory. I plan to stay on top of this story.

Homecoming. Meredith and I went to our niece’s high school homecoming football game recently. She is a senior at Towns County High School and was on the homecoming court. Towns County is two counties east of here. All school kids in the county, from grades 1 to 12, go to the same school campus. The biggest city in Towns County is Hiawassee, with a population of 880 according to the 2010 census. The town is nestled in the mountains and borders on picturesque Lake Chatuge. Hiawassee’s main claim to fame is that wealthy people have built large, expensive, and spectacular lake front vacation homes there. They call them cabins. Cabins my ass! Some of them are larger than presidential palaces in third world countries.

The homecoming game and pageantry was quintessential small town America. It was almost enough to give you tooth decay.

The homecoming pageantry occurred at half time when the homecoming court was introduced. The homecoming queen was crowned by last year’s homecoming queen. I thought it was above and beyond the call of duty for last year’s queen to return to Towns County to crown her successor; then it occurred to me that she may have never left.

I have been to more than my share of high school homecomings. My sons played in the band in high school so I not only got to see my sons’ high school homecoming every year, but also the homecomings of other high schools when the band played at away games. I’m pretty sure that one of the levels of hell requires you to watch endless homecoming ceremonies.

The most interesting part of every homecoming is when the announcer introduces the members of the homecoming court and tells you about their accomplishments and aspirations. It’s always something like so and so plans to attend such and such college and be an astrophysicist or enter the field of primary education or dance with the Joffre Ballet. You never hear that Anna Marie aspires to be a pole dancer in an Atlanta strip joint, that Kimberly would like to undergo substance abuse counseling before she turns 20, or that Christina plans on being a mule for a major Mexican drug cartel. Because north Georgia is part of Appalachia, I was hoping for some local flavor like Betty Jane plans on marrying a taxidermist, having eight kids, and living in a double-wide, but no luck. My impression is that all the girls aspired to get the hell out of rural Georgia as quickly as possible.

Still, there is something about their young optimism and naiveté that is pure and refreshing and untouched by cynicism. I, unfortunately, am not untouched by cynicism. I am not a “glass half full” person. I’m not even a “glass half empty” person. I’m a “just wait, some asshole is going to break the glass” person. So when I go to a high school homecoming and hear their bright youthful desires for the future, I can’t help but think, “Boy, are you in for major disappointment.”

Perhaps it’s that cynicism that causes me to construe remarks and statement in ways that they are not intended. For instance, the announcer’s brief bio of each of the girls on the homecoming court included their favorite memories of high school. The favorite memory of one girl who was on the cheerleading squad was spending Friday nights with the football team. You can imagine the thought that immediately popped into my mind. I’m thinking that it’s no wonder she got so many votes.

I looked around to see if anyone else in the crowd had the same thought. Apparently not. I’m going to attribute the lack of reaction to the innocence of simple rural life, but the real explanation is probably that I’m a depraved and twisted person. I wonder how long it will be before I’m tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail?

I Get My Soil Tested

In preparation for the big garden I intend to have, I had my soil tested by the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service. It’s hard for me to admit that I had anything to do with the University of Georgia since I am a long time Florida Gator fan, but that’s one of the sacrifices I have to make if I want to live in rural Georgia.

I obtained a small soil test bag from the local agricultural extension service agent. The bag came with detailed instructions on how deep to dig for the sample and how much soil to put in the bag.

I wish they gave equally detailed instructions when you give a urine sample. I know how deep to dig for the sample, but I’m never certain on how full I should fill the vial. I feel like it’s a competition, so I go right to the brim. I don’t want to be out-peed by anyone, especially those sickly characters in the waiting room.

I also wish the urine sample vial was as large as a soil sample bag. I can’t speak for every man, but the opening of a urine sample bottle is a mighty small target for a very inaccurate weapon. You would think that the medical establishment would know by now that men have accuracy issues and help us out. We’re not exactly wielding a laser guided smart bomb. Our technique is best described as spray and pray. We hit our target about as often a Wiley Coyote. If we can’t hit an open toilet, how the hell are we supposed to pee into a small bottle? I suggest a sample bottle with a larger opening−one the size of Rhode Island should be about right.

While I’m on the subject, do you think they could give you a bigger container just in case you really have to go? Like most every other thing in my life that part of my anatomy has two speeds: stop and go. When I say I have to go with the flow, I mean it. I think they should give you a container the size of a milk jug just in case.

Anyway, once you have gotten your soil sample, you drop it off at the extension agent’s office, and a few days later, you get emailed the test results.

I suspect my test results are fairly standard for the soils in this area. The pH is 5.1, meaning the soil is acidic. The recommended pH is 6.0 to 6.5. I did not expect the report to read like the label of a One-A-Day multi-vitamin. It said I need to add phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and zinc to the soil. I was waiting for page two to tell me the soil needed vitamin A, vitamin C, glucosamine, castor oil, and a high colonic enema.

Fortunately, the soil test report told me what I need to do to correct these soil deficiencies. It recommends that I use 95 pounds of dolomitic limestone per 1,000 square feet of garden. I have no idea where one gets dolomitic limestone, but I assume it’s available locally. I’d really be screwed if I needed something that is only available in sub-Saharan Africa or North Korea. I just hope the limestone doesn’t come as one large lump of rock.

I’m also supposed to apply a half pound of sulpher or two pounds of gypsum per 1000 square feet of garden. This could be a long shot, but I bet I can get the sulpher or gypsum at the same place I get the limestone. It’s probably on aisle 9 between cold remedies and foot care.

All this seems manageable if you’re planning on having a 1,000 square foot garden, but here’s the problem. I also have four or five acres of field. People around here say that they lime their fields to improve the quality of the grass, and I’d like to do the same. An acre is 43,560 square feet. At 95 pounds per 1,000 square feet, that comes out to over 4,000 pounds of dolomitic limestone per acre. Multiply that by four or five acres, and you’re talking 16,000 to 20,000 pounds of limestone. Holy cow! I’m not trying to build the Lincoln Memorial; I’m just trying to grow a few tomatoes. Does the stuff come in dump trucks? How does one put ten tons of limestone on a field?

Obviously, I have a lot to learn about this whole subject. I’m heading for the library and the extension agent’s office tomorrow. I’ve got a long list of questions that need to be answered.

Yogurt. As I said in my first post on this blog, one of the reasons I moved to a rural area was to learn to do stuff the old fashioned way. I took a baby step in that direction a couple of days ago when I made yogurt. I realize that you don’t have to live in the country to make yogurt. I also realize that making yogurt is about as complicated as sharpening a pencil. But it’s a start.

The yogurt turned out to be quite good. It occurred to me, however, that making yogurt probably doesn’t qualify as doing things the old fashioned way. I don’t remember reading anything about colonial Americans making yogurt. I can’t picture Washington at Valley Forge wolfing down a cup of yogurt for breakfast or Daniel Boone starting the day with Yoplait.

I imagine that a pioneer breakfast was more like a large haunch of deer and four pounds of hominy. You can get away with a breakfast like that when your day consisted of chopping down a forest or discovering Kentucky. My day consists of wandering back and forth between the cabin and the workshop and taking long naps, so the yogurt is probably a good idea for me. I want to stay nimble just in case there is an aggressive Bigfoot in these parts.

Now that I think about it, yogurt was probably invented in a yurt in Mongolia. I doubt many Mongolians were early settlers in the New World. As I say, the yogurt is a start. Making cheese is next on my list. We’ll see how that turns out.

Local News, Barbed Wire, and Deer Poop

Nothing captures the flavor of small town America better than a small town newspaper. The local paper, the News Observer, is no exception. Published in Blue Ridge twice weekly, the paper covers Fannin County here in Georgia and Polk County just across the Toccoa River in Tennessee. It continues to provide fodder for this blog.

Copperhill, Tennessee, is located on the other side of the Toccoa River from McCaysville, Georgia. Talk about a small town. The headline of a recent News Observer story was “Radar added in Copperhill.” The subheadline read “Council votes to equip both city police cars.” I guess that’s one car for Andy and one for Barney.

Since I came up with the theory that the squirrels around here are zombies because of their odd behavior, I’ve kept my eye on the pesky animals. The following News Observer headline caught my eye: “Squirrel kills power to 6,000.” According to the story, a squirrel took out the power to 6,000 customers in Fannin and Polk Counties for 45 minutes. That sounds like something that a mindless zombie squirrel would do. I mean how many squirrels try to bury their nuts in a power line? Unfortunately there was not enough left of the squirrel to do an autopsy to confirm my zombie theory. The image of a crisply charred squirrel reminds me of the line in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?: “Gopher, Everett?”

It doesn’t take much to be a newsworthy item in the News Observer. In an article titled, “Suspicious fires investigated in Fannin County,” I learned that ten firefighters, two engines, a tanker, an ambulance, and an Air and Light unit responded to a house fire only to discover that the home’s occupants “had already extinguished the fire with a garden hose and pots of water.” That was some two alarm fire, wasn’t it? It sounds to me like the local fire brigade was sitting around scratching their asses for something to do that evening. I have no idea what an air and light unit is. Is there an Earth, Wind and Fire unit?

Turning to another matter, I’ve discovered that the only thing worse than putting up barbed wire is taking it down.

Years ago, we let our neighbor run his cows on our field. The cows would come up to the front steps in the evening. It was a symbiotic relationship: we would watch them, and they would watch us. There were many evenings when I sat eye to eye with a cow contemplating what a cow’s life is like. This works best after several beers. I know that doesn’t sound very entertaining, but watching a cow chew its cud is very calming. I came to understand that a cow is just a big cellulose digesting factory. It’s a brilliant scheme. It has four legs to get to the grass, a mouth to take in the grass, multiple stomachs to digest the grass, and a very active waste elimination system.

My enjoyment with these close cow encounters ended early one morning when I came down the steps, stepped in a fresh cow plop, and slid half way to Mineral Bluff. There is nothing more slippery than fresh cow shit. It has a coefficient of friction approaching zero. NASA scientists cannot improve on it.

That was the end of bovine appreciation nights at the Yacavone homestead. I promptly built a barbed wire fence around the cabin to keep the cows out. Eventually a new neighbor moved in, and he fenced his pasture so that the cows cannot get on our property. This eliminated the need for our barbed wire enclosure so I decided to take it down the other day.

If you don’t know, barbed wire comes in tight coils, and you have to stretch it out when you put it up. It has a remarkable ability to remember it was once coiled and a strong desire to resume its coiled shape. That means when you cut a stretched strand, it whips through the air at slightly less than the speed of sound. That’s a problem when, because of age and a dissolute lifestyle, you have the reaction time of a banana slug. I spent most of the morning trying to remember when I last had a tetanus shot.

Based on this experience, I’ve determined that there are three types of barbed wire. There’s the “I’m going to scratch you and give you lockjaw” type. There’s the “I’m going to scar your face so you can scare the crap out of kids on Halloween” type. The worse is the “Have you been circumcised?” type. The lesson here is that if anyone asks you to help take down barbed wire, find an excuse to do something else. It’s probably safer to defuse bombs.

Finally, I was laying on the couch watching TV the other night, and Meredith started to read to me from a book she checked out at the local library. The section she read informed me that deer poop is shiny when fresh and that male deer tend to stand still when they crap while female deer tend to crap on the move; thus, small piles of deer poop indicates a buck and scattered deer poop indicates a doe.

The first thought that ran through my mind was who does she think she marries, Hiawatha? Do I really need to know whether I am looking at a male or female deer turd and whether it is fresh or not? It’s not like I’m Daniel Boone. I really doubt that the answer to any question on Jeopardy will be, “What is shiny scattered deer shit?” I can just imagine it: “I’ll take Deer Poop for $200, Alex.” The next thing you know, we’ll be talking about weasel piss.

Squirrels, Wooly Caterpillars, and Falling Branches

One purpose of this blog is to document my observations and discoveries about rural life. I don’t know whether you should call the following an observation, a discovery, or some other word that I can’t think of that means, “No shit, Sherlock.”

I’ve discovered that things-big things-fall out of trees all the time. I’m not talking about leaves, acorns, and the occasional squirrel. I’m talking about tree limbs big enough to injure you. It has happened several times in the three weeks that I have been living here. A couple of times it has happened with no warning on a calm day with barely a breeze in the air.

I could not find any statistics on the number of injuries caused by falling tree limbs, but a Google search revealed scores of reports of people being injured when a branch fell on them. I’m surprised I haven’t seen an ad from Morgan and Morgan about this: “Injured by a falling branch? Call Morgan and Morgan.”

I think the public should be warned about this little known and under appreciated threat to our health and safety. I’ve seen public service announcements about the danger of lightning, but I’ve never seen anything about that danger of being conked on the head by a falling branch while in the woods. Instead of Smokey the Bear, we could have Gravity the Squirrel warning us that only you can prevent traumatic brain injuries from falling tree limbs. I envision posters with the slogan, “Look up and look out.”

My major concern about shining a light on this issue is that the government will get involved. The next thing you know, the EPA will generate reams of regulations requiring us to wear hard hats when we go in the woods and to place warning labels on trees: “Caution: Hiking and Camping Can Be Hazardous to Your Health.” On second thought, forget I even brought the subject up.

 

Squirrels. There is something strange about the squirrels here. They don’t act like Florida squirrels. When you drive up on a Florida squirrel in the middle of the road, it acts like it’s overdosed on amphetamines; it has a nervous breakdown and can’t make decision on which way to flee. The squirrels here act like they’re stoned. They just sit there and look at you and then casually meander to the side to let you pass. 

 

One explanation is that country squirrels are unfamiliar with automobiles and haven’t learned that cars can make squirrel toothpaste out of them. But that doesn’t make sense. It seems to me that the first reaction of any wild animal, especially small ones, would be to flee a large unfamiliar object bearing down on them. Maybe the squirrels here are stoned and have an acorn buzz (“Try this, dude. This is some powerful nut”). But there are acorns in Florida, and the squirrels there do not act like Cheech and Chong. 

 

No, there has to be another explanation. My theory is that they are zombie squirrels in the classic Haitian voodoo meaning of the word. You laugh, but people laughed at Arthur Holmes when he first proposed the theory of plate tectonics. Because I have only seen this unusual squirrel behavior during the day (Do you think I’m going out at night if I suspect there are zombie squirrels?) and couldn’t remember whether zombies or vampires or both only come out at night, I did some research. According to the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency:

Since zombies can go out in the daylight, their choice of hideouts is somewhat more varied than that of a vampire. A zombie can simply rest against a tree in the woods, while a vampire must find a cave or construct a crude hovel before the sun rises. Because they lack the vampire's supreme adaptability, zombies rarely proliferate in urban areas. Zombies do much better in the country, where they can disappear into the landscape.

 

I think this supports my zombie squirrel theory. If I ever see a sleeping squirrel leaning against a tree, I will have the proof I need. 

 

Spiders. I am not afraid of spiders. In fact, I pay so little attention to them that Meredith is worried that I will get bitten by a black widow or a brown recluse, both of which are supposed to be common here. But I have noticed that this place not only has a lot of daddy long legs, but they are the biggest ones I’ve ever seen. Their legs are incredibly long. They look like those machines in War of the Worlds. I’m waiting for one to shoot a miniature death ray at an ant. 

 

I’ve also noticed that quite a few daddy long legs have less than eight legs. I saw one yesterday that had three legs; it was just limping along like everything was normal. This got me wondering whether it is unusual for daddy long legs to have less than the standard allotment of legs. What happened to the missing legs? Do they just fall off? Do daddy long legs lose them in fights or forget to attach them in the morning? Are daddy long legs with less than eight legs ostracized by ones with the right number of legs? Does a seven legged daddy long legs outrank a five legged one? Does the spider world have a Spiders with Disabilities Act? 

 

There were a lot of daddy long legs on the workshop walls when I spray painted it this spring. They are now permanently frozen in position. The entire back wall of the workshop is a three dimensional tableau of daddy long legs action figures. They’re like those little plastic army men, only they’re spiders. It’s actually a little horrifying, like a Matthew Brady photograph of dead soldiers on a Civil War battlefield. I hope the daddy long legs nation is not seeking retribution. They may be small, but there are millions of them. 

 

Wooly Caterpillars. If you’ve never seen a Wooly Caterpillar, they look like Groucho Marx’s eyebrows crawling across the ground. I’ve seen several of them recently. At least I think they were wooly caterpillars; they were fuzzy, and they were caterpillars. I’m told that not all fuzzy caterpillars are Wooly Caterpillars. At any rate, the locals tell me that Wooly Caterpillars are abundant this year and that this is a sign it will be a cold winter. I don’t know if I’m buying that. I think the Wooly Caterpillars are moving out because the neighborhood is being taken over by defective daddy long legs and zombie squirrels.