For those of you in East Tennessee, have you had enough rain yet??? We are scheduled for more rain tonight, on top of already flooded ground. There are rock slides galore, another one on Highway 85 this morning, 2 on Hwy 64. I expect there will be more to follow with all of this rain on top of ground so wet you could stick a straw in it and drink. We live in a flood zone from Chestuee Creek. Actually I think that creek floods all the way through McMinn and Polk Counties. The backside of our property floods when the creek does, but the majority of the property is not in any danger of flooding at all, especially the house with us being up on the hill. The only problem it really causes for us is not being able to get to work very easily. The roads all flood, Bigfoot Road floods at the one lane bridge, the connector road to Goodsprings Road floods badly, I zigzag back and forth over this creek all the way to work and usually end up backing up and going several ways before I can find a passable road. Then if it rains most of the day I constantly think about the best way to get home. Getting stranded at home would be a good thing, not being able to get home would throw me into a menopausal panic breakdown. LOL But back to the rain, we are expecting more. I hope it dries out enough to turn the garden over soon. I will need to get the cabbage and Brussels sprouts in the ground while it is cold and the potatoes in the ground before the Spring Rains come.
There is much pig talk going on around the farm as of late. We are getting excited about the idea of having a few pigs, one a feeder and one for breeding. With the excitement comes a bit of nervous thought as well. We just hope we build the pen strong enough and make the whole thing pig happy enough to keep them inside and not have any risk of them venturing outside. One because of the damage it could do to our garden and two because I think our neighbors up behind us are the kind of country folk that are really city folk but like the idea of having a $250,000 house in the country, with a fancy little yard (excuse me “lawn” cuz that’s what you have when you are rich, yards are for poor folks). Those types of folks don’t have gardens, or farm animals or any animal actually, they don’t even read farm magazines or anything but may have like a Hobby Farm magazine in a $150 magazine rack by the front door. Their boot mat on the front porch is cleaner than it was when they bought it from a catalog and the dinner bell on the porch never gets rung. ROFL, I ring my dinner bell if Chris is out working and supper is done. No need in wasting that 2 bucks we spent on it at a yard sale. LOL But anyways, I don’t figure they’d take to kindly to a couple of fat chubbies chewing up their freshly mowed “lawn”. So our goal is to be extra cautious and make sure the pen is sturdy and those hoglets are happy little things.
I am hearing more and more that folks are losing meat to the weather. It just is not cold enough anymore for hams to hang in a root cellar for a winter and a half, or a year when needed. The hams are just not lasting that long. I was talking to Don last night and he told me of a cousin or someone that lost a bunch of good meat to the weather this year. I know my own deer hams did not fair well. So we talked about other things you can do. For one we are going to get that smoke house built as soon as we can this year. That will certainly help. Also there is the method of placing choice cuts of meat in a sugar cure or salt cure. Take out what you need and only what you need at the time. He said his Mama use to can as much of the hog as she could, sausage, tenderloins, chops, you name it, she canned it. So I figure when we slaughter said hog, we will be very busy rendering lard, canning meat and trying to figure out the best way to prepare it for winter usage. After all, I do want a nice hunk of meat to fix when one of you comes to visit. We do not buy much meat and I surely do miss pork. It is my favorite meat and I love some good chops or country ham, maybe even some bacon or hocks in my beans or soup. So we are looking forward to this new experience and although I can be sure there will me some mistakes and such, hopefully it will be a positive experience, for us and the hogs….well….for one of the hogs at least, the other will eventually not be caring what kind of experience it had, but it will at least be happy and healthy with plenty of food to eat while it is here.
We got Lakota on Friday and she spent the night She is reading Dolly Parton’s autobiography for an essay at school. She read almost the entire time she was there. We had nice fresh eggs, some bacon, toast and fried potatoes for breakfast. After dropping her off at home Saturday, we picked up Perrin for the night. We stopped by and had a visit with Don and Johnny on the way home and that was nice. Perrin played with the old metal cars Johnny keeps in a box in the closet. We talked about everything there was to talk about before we headed home. I absolutely adore both of them and can honestly not think of better people on this Earth. They both have the biggest hearts and I like to listen to them and learn from them because between the two of them I reckon they know just about everything. Perrin always liked visiting them as well. He was so excited to spend the night at the Broken House. He certainly does love the house and I am always so happy that he loves to come to see us, spend time with us and enjoy being in the house. He wanted to sleep on the cot that Lakota gets to sleep on, which is strange because he usually wants to sleep in the bed with us. He fell asleep almost as soon as he was covered up and slept all night so peacefully. Sunday morning Chris left for church with Don and I stayed home with Perrin. After donning his overalls, he discovered his cowboy hat. Not long afterwards he found a rope Chris had bought at the auction. I cut a piece of it off and made him a lasso and for 3 ½ hours that child played cowboy non stop. He tied my feet up, tied them to the bathroom door and the antique cabinet. A red straight back chair from the kitchen became his bull, after it was his “moose” for a few hours. Then he realized cowboys did not really have a moose, so it turned into his bull. He fought off Indians and rode that bull across the mountain. He turned from a good cowboy to a mean one in a second and tied people to railroad tracks and fought off wolves and bears that came form under the bed and behind the wood heater. He roped his bull over and over and lassoed my feet, then tried to pull me across the “mountain”. He had a blast. Chris came home and within minutes he had on his overalls and Perrin tied him to the railroad tracks. He pretended to be a train coming as well. He asked his Papaw to tie him up on his bull and so that was completed in seconds. He was having a blast and I just thought he was adorable. I snapped a few pictures of him before I took him home.
After returning home to the silence of the house, I was already missing them both. Oh I wonder sometimes what it would be like to have a houseful of youngins to bring life to that old house. 6, 8 or even 12 of them running around, trying to carry water for the whole lot of ‘em, cooking for the huge family, trying to sew clothes for them all. What a life a farm must have seen when there use to be that many kids running about, helping hands around the farm, doing chores, catching June Bugs and fireflies and playing in the branch. At least I have the pleasure of having a few of my grandkids around so the house can have a little girl sitting near the window so she can see to read a book for school, the old tree out front with the old rope and wooden swing having a little boy with a big smile and tiny hands holding on as he swings on the hill, another one loading a wagon with wood for the fire and enjoying the ride on the wagon back to get a fresh load. Kids bring life to a farm, love….excitement, movement. I often wish I had 15 grandkids or more. I hope I live to see my first great grandchild be born, live to see its tiny little hands holding to the rope on the swing.
When they are not there, the house is quiet. Not an awful quiet, a welcoming quiet. I do love those grandkids, but I also love my rocking chair, the warm fire, potatoes cooking on the wood stove. I spent a lot of time knitting this weekend. I was able to finish Perrin’s scarf he wanted to match his coat. I was putting tassels on last night at midnight, by candle and the light of the oil lamp. I was glad to have it finished, so I can get back to my quilting. I got in bed late and could not sleep (another wonderful thing this menopause can do to you). I was dog tired and could not fall asleep to beat the boot. As soon as my eyes closed I was wide awake. I checked out some books from the library last week and figured if I read a bit, I would get tired enough for sleep. I have already finished 3 of the books in as many days. They are all mountain lore, written by folks who lived here in these mountains in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. They are very interesting books. I love hearing the stories told by the people who lived it, before cars and phones. When everything was made or bartered, nothing much store bought. Salt was scarce and shoes were a luxury. Those books make me crave more, more of what once was. The only problem is, it don’t matter how far back in time I take my lifestyle, I can never really live it, feel it or be it the way it really was because it takes a whole community to get the full effect of a life like that. It takes everyone living it, knowing it, feeling it, being it for it to allow you the chance to see what life was really like. What I get from it is only my side of things. As much as some may be interested in the life, especially friends and neighbors, they have no desire to KNOW it, to live it. They have questions and often wonder about things, but not e enough to experience it for themselves. It may seem so odd to others, but I cannot understand that. How can you not have so much curiosity that you are pulled to FEEL it and BE it yourself, not just read about it. I want an old country store that sells dry goods, I want the neighbor to ask me if I have a bit of salt to spare, I want to have strangers stop by for a drink out of my spring, after all, I do keep a nice ladle on the cedar tree just for that purpose. I cannot have it all, the true experience, it has found way to escape from reality and only surface in the words of a book written by an old woman in 1909. At least there is that however, I could be with nothing, nothing but the words and stories of my mother and mam-maw. Those words and memories I try so hard to not forget, the stories I make myself repeat, remember, KNOW! But therein lies a problem that I must start working on to correct. I think of the stories and I find myself forgetting. I have to stop and think, now did that bear stay in that house all night, or did the dog carry the letter across the frozen river more than once. So now I have realized that my mind is not the proper library to house all of those memories, because it is open to the elements so to speak. Years of weathering and dust and contamination from worries and fears can destroy those pages of time. Sadly they are not recorded anywhere else and are on a fast path of being destroyed forever. So I HAVE to make myself take time to write them down. I want my granddaughter to be able to hold her granddaughter and rock her to sleep while she tells her about the little girl home alone when the bear came to visit, eating all of her cornbread and honey. And I want Perrin to be able to sit down on the creek bank with his grandson and tell him about the dog that use to carry notes to the country store, walking across the Hiwassee River when it froze over, bringing home the requested items tied in a small sack on its back. I want Devin to sit with his grandchildren and tell about his grandmother killing rats with a stick of wood in the living room while her Mam-maw was bedridden and told her of stories when she was a child. It is important those things be remembered, passed down, shared, written somewhere so they won’t succumb to the old age of a woman who is fast forgetting details.
And so I have rambled and brought you to tears in boredom, lol, but I generally post the current thoughts from my cob webbed covered brain.
Things are well at the Broken House. Even in the dead of Winter, when the dark eyed Junco has to force out the first song of the morning, life is abundant and happiness prevails.
Cowboy Perrin, all tied up!
Perrin begged his Papaw to tie him up on his "Bull"
Papaw successfully captures the cowboy AND his bull!
Perrin was thrilled when I delivered his new scarf to him that I made. He requested a red and black one to match his coat. He put it on this morning and absolutely loved it, things like that can sure make a Chi Chi proud!
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