Farm life

AN OLD FIG TREE

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Twenty-five years ago I took a cutting from the old fig tree gracing my aunt’s and grandmother’s backyard. It is a “common” fig which needs no male plant to pollinate and for some reason sounds lonely to me. Later I planted another “younger” tree, grown from a cutting from my original tree, which makes it a grandchild of sorts. I seem to be rambling and a bit morose. I should reframe from drinking another adult beverage until I finish this.

My fig trees haven’t done well unless you consider having JUST survived to be doing well. It’s my home’s location and the weather’s timing. Sitting in the foothills of the Blue Ridge I live in the area known both as the “Dark Corner” and the “Thermal Belt.” The name Dark Corner has no bearing upon my fig trees but the Thermal Belt does. Generally, our weather is not as cool as the surrounding areas…except when it is. Every year the weather seems to throw us a curve just after my fig trees have put out their leaves and first fruit. The threat of frost or freezing temperatures sends fruit growers, along with me, into a frenzy of activity and prayer while we attempt to save our plants. Many years my fig trees have been killed all the way back to the roots. Weeks would pass as I checked them daily hoping to see a bit of green after calling family members to ask if they had grown a tree from the original’s cuttings. No one has an original fig tree “relative” but so far my figs have rewarded me with new growth from the roots every time they were killed back despite looking to be in sad shape.

In many ways my fig trees remind me of my grandmother as she battled through the gray months of winter. She only slightly tolerated the winter and only those days she could get outside. My “younger” grandmother attempted to find ways to stay busy on overly cold and gloomy days which were any day she could not get outside. On those sunless and dismal days, Nannie would write her thoughts on spiral bound notebooks and stare out her window or sew. Patchwork quilts seemed to be her preference although she would sometimes use a pattern and create dresses from repurposed “feed sacks.” To the untrained eye the prized cloth scraps making up her quilt seemed to be laid out in a disordered clutter. This was despite her having studied over the bright and irregular patches for hours before placing them just right…the way she wanted them. Many of those oddly matched patches were memories; a part of an old shirt Paw Paw had worn, a favorite dress, or possibly something worn by a child or a grandchild. I wish I had asked her about their meaning but stupid me I never did. In the late winter she would begin to perk up when the mail brought an almanac or a seed catalogue. At least she was planning for the spring.

Later in her life Nannie took up painting. Quite well I might add. A kind of Grandmother Moses, she painted fishing lakes, barns, landscapes, churches and flowers. Knowing my grandmother this choice of subject was not a surprise. Nannie found her new talent by completing a painting my mother had begun before she lost the ability to sit up and hold on to her brushes. In my family a supreme being seems to decree that if we have any talent it will not manifest itself until the “autumn years” of our life. As Nannie went into her winter years’ poor eyesight and arthritis made it harder for her to bounce back but bounce back she did. Just like my fig trees and her spring flowers Nannie always came alive in the spring…until she didn’t at the age of ninety-eight. She died in the cold of February, just short of spring.

I find myself saying things my grandmother might have said and doing things she might have done. These days I don’t tolerate winter any better than she did or my fig trees do. I have taken up writing but I am not sure it is a talent or a curse, especially for those who choose to read my stories. I spent this past winter suffering through sore knees and a bad back to the point of giving up running for nearly four months until spring came with its annual rebirth. It’s now late May and I am running slowly again; answering a Siren’s call I can’t quite ignore. I feel my spirits rising while my fig puts out new growth from its roots reminding me of my grandmother pulling weeds, hoeing between her rows of beans or fishing. Maybe I can keep winter from lasting quite as long or at least protect my fig trees from that last cold snap during early spring. I will also never complain about the heat and humidity of summer again and hope Indian Summer holds on even longer.

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

LIGHTNIN’ BUGS

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“A dark night, lightened up by thousands of glowing fireflies… It’s magical…”
― Ama H. Vanniarachchy

I sat outside last evening celebrating the spring of my sixty-sixth year. I was happily enjoying a cigar and a dark and amber adult beverage while an evening breeze was being kicked up by a distant thunderstorm. Far away according to my weather app, the storm was close enough to cause the “rain” frogs to break in to a calliope of croaking “music” and my puppy dogs to escape to the shelter of my home. As I watched a rising thunderhead moving south of me I saw a small winking light in one of our black walnut trees…followed by another. It was a “blink, blink” followed by a second “blink, blink” in a code I did not understand. “Lightnin’ bugs” had made their early May appearance.

Late one evening several decades ago, a late-night, spring thunderstorm had knocked off our power just long enough for our thirty-year-old pump to lose its prime. I made the dark and scary trip down to the spring my pump fed from and began the process of priming it. Our old pump was located above a cistern created by the previous owner in the 1950s to catch the spring water escaping from under a very large oak tree. As I bent over and tried to concentrate on priming rather than my fears, I felt I had company. Expecting to find a bear, bobcat or vampire eyeing me as a meal, I instead beheld an eerie sight as fireflies began to awake from their winter hideaways and flash their little mating signal. “Come here. I am ready for you to find me. It is time for us to propagate the species.” Not very romantic but we are talking about fireflies and I don’t think they know the words to “You Light Up My Life….” What made their emergence eerie was the fact they had risen to no higher than three feet above the ground and were all blinking in sequence with each other. I was amazed and just a bit fearful. Twenty-eight years later, they still make their appearance in early May but I’ve never seen their group emergence since. A once in a lifetime occurrence? If it was, it was worth it.

Most of us have memories of fireflies. Before computers games, Play Stations, IPads and adulthood we ran barefoot through the early evening dew as twilight fell, an old canning or jelly jar at the ready, trying to see how many fireflies one might gather between supper and bed time. Did you let yours go? I have a memory of our young daughter, Ashley, no more than four or five years old, running and laughing with Linda-Gail while they filled her jar. I had punched breathing holes in the canning lid the same way my grandmother had punched holes in mine so my brother and I could chase the flashing lights through the privet hedge behind her house. As the most dreaded hour of the day approached, bed time, Ashley refused to part with her lightning bug filled jar, intently watching them as she bathed and later when she curled up with them in her bed. When we checked on her later, I found her still awake and grinning like the “Cheshire Cat.” She slowly pointed to the ceiling and said, “Look flashing stars.” A decade later during a college visit, I found that she had glued florescent stars to the ceiling of her bedroom and I could not help but remember and smile.

After I saw my two lightning bugs, and in spite of my fear of the local bear who periodically tears down my fence and steals my trash, I could not curb my curiosity and walked to the backside of my yard bordering the stream. I had hopes I might see the lightning bug’s group emergence again. There was nothing but darkness and disappointment to greet me, not the silent chorus of lights I was hoping for. Maybe tomorrow night.

Disappointment was short lived. My thoughts wandered to Ashley and my red haired little monkey, granddaughter Miller. It won’t be long until she will be old enough to chase lightning bugs on her own. God, please give us the energy to be able to chase them with her.

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

AH…SPRING

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Wow! An actual spring this year. Most years we simple go from the dead of winter to the height of summer in a twenty-four-hour period. There were a couple of days when I worried as the thermometer edged past a somewhat comfortable eighty-five into an uncomfortable near ninety. But thankfully no, it was simply a harbinger of the heat, humidity and mosquitoes to come. We are in the midst of “blackberry winter” with beautiful white blackberry blooms adorning our roadsides bring cool morning temperatures and warm, but not hot, afternoons. Moderate evening temperatures allow for outdoor activities involving a cigar, an adult beverage, a comfortable sweat shirt and the smell of sweet honeysuckle mixing with the aroma of my Dutch Master’s Honey Corona. Ah…Spring!

The local bear paid me his annual spring visit last night, pulling down my fence before making off with two bags of trash. “Pooh Bear” found no honey but seemed to enjoy the empty peanut butter jar…once he got into it. He was not a very tidy diner but at least he left both bags “relatively” close together and intact. Last year his “great trash robbery” was left scattered over an acre. Linda Gail and I have enjoyed watching a small brown snake, variety not color exactly, make his slow, early morning trek up into the tangle mess of Linda’s clematis while waiting for the morning sun to warm the very cockles of his little fork-tongued soul. I’m not too worried about my bird families because even the smallest babies are larger than the snake. Flick, flick goes his tongue. Several mornings ago I watched a doe and two small, spot covered, fawns cautiously follow the stream past my garden. I hope they don’t discover my tender spring plantings. Ah…Spring!

As I sat outside in my camp chair last night, I was treated to a concert of sorts. I had decided to enjoy a second adult beverage and heard the melodic yet lonesome call of a whippoorwill. I heard no answering call and could not help but softly sing “Hear that lonesome whippoorwill, He sounds too blue to fly, the midnight train is whining low, I’m so lonesome I could cry.” Thank you Hank Williams. My moroseness was short lived when the owls began their serenade. They certainly are not lonesome. It won’t be long before their hooting will be joined by the cicadas and their short lived mating chant along with the fireflies and their flashing message, “Here I am, lets skip the light fandango.” Ah…Spring!

Unfortunately, even the Garden of Eden had its serpent. My little piece of heaven does too and I am not speaking about my friendly little brown snake. With spring comes beautiful flowers, green trees, the honeysuckle and my “god awful” allergies! A serpent disguised as postnasal drip…no, disguised as a postnasal flood of biblical proportions. Noah had nothing on me and there are no rainbows to signify the end of the flood. I think I may drown in my own pool of…mucus and wonder why God decided to place our noses upside down over our mouths. I have an equally allergic friend who I converse with several times a week. Our conversations seem to always begin with “My allergies are…” take your pick. I’ve attempted all of the fixes and found I cannot sleep standing up. My allergy tests showed I was allergic to one hundred and forty-four different grasses and weeds, all possibly found in my backyard. Trees, including the dozen or so Beech trees found around the stream behind my house, assorted molds and mildews, and cocklebur. I’ve got them all and I tried all the remedies. Weekly allergy shots for two years to a daily teaspoon of local honey and everything in between including three different allergy prescriptions, all taken at the same time. Maybe a World War One gas mask might work but I fear it would simply fill up and drown me in the end and there is no end in sight until the cold, unwelcomed winds of winter. Ah…Spring…Ahhhhhhh Chooooooooo, sniff, sniff, sniff, cough, cough, cough!

For more of Don Miller’s unique view of life click on http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN

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Paradise was once found on the banks of the Catawba River. It had to be the Garden of Eden. Some three miles by crooked road from the river was my home. I still walk and run the old river road today, although only in my memories and my dreams. In between the river and my home were nearly seven hundred acres of heaven. Seven hundred acres of pastures, forests, fields and ten “fishin’” lakes, one a five-acre “pond” we called the “Pettus Pond” where I caught the biggest blue gill of my life, another, twenty acres of water called the “Bowers Big Lake” where I caught the nearly nine-pound largemouth still adorning the wall in my study. Seven hundred acres of playground nirvana.

H.L. Bowers, my Uncle Hugh Wilson’s former carpenter’s helper and true American success story, had purchased or as the locals said, “bought up” nearly seven hundred acres of forest and pasture land sitting on the east bank of the Catawba. Farther east, the border of his land stopped just short of Highway 521. The reason it stopped short was a cluster of small farm houses, fields, pastures and forest owned collectively by my parents, my grandfather and grandmother along with my grandfather’s brother’s family and their sister and her husband. There were other land owners as well but the main dirt road leading to the old Collins’s house that Bower’s would eventually convert into a lodge ran right through the middle of our property. The Bowers’ “land” and the road to it was where I fell in love for the very first time.

My grandmother taught me to fish, the nuances of tying on a gold number six hook, treading on a wiggling red worm, where to look for fish on the bed and what the signs were. “Can’t you smell ‘um?” “See those pot holes?” “Make sure you keep the tip of your hook covered!” “Look at your shadow! If you can see your shadow so can the fish.” “Keep your pole tip high!” One of her fishing buddies, Miss Maggie Cureton, would say, “She sho’ nuff’ can smell deem fishes.” She also thought Nannie might have sold her soul to the devil or practiced West African Vodun because she fished according to the signs of the moon, wind direction and weather forecast. “East is when fish bite least, west is when fish bite the best, north neither man nor beast go forth, and south blows the worm into the fishes’ mouth.” No it didn’t quite rhyme but a full moon, wind from the south or south-east with a rising barometer…time to go fishing. There were times Nannie ignored the signs and, likely as not, she would not be shutout.

We began to fish the Pettus Pond in the late Fifties or early Sixties. Named for our Aunt Bess’s family, it sat on land purchased from them. We were blessed to fish there. Mr. Bower’s was being neighborly but he was not neighborly to everyone. NO TRESPASSING signs were posted but those signs did nothing to deter the locals who succumbed to the siren’s call of water filled with fat blue gills, large-mouth bass and catfish. Large fines or being escorted off his land at the wrong end of a double barreled shotgun did not seem very neighborly. I heard many people refer to Mr. Bowers in less than glowing terms due to his reluctance to allow fishing on his land. It took me until adulthood to realize why he might not want his ponds over fished and I assure you they would have been.

My grandmother was in hot demand as a fishing partner. Friends from all around called to set up “fishing dates” even though she was careful not to fish the Pettus Pond all of the time. She did not want to “over stay her welcome” so to speak and only trusted partners got to go to the Pettus Pond…and her “fishing crazy” grandson. It wasn’t where she fished, it was how she fished. Rarely did the fish avoid her hook and her “luck” seemed to transfer to those who fished with her regardless of the water she put her hook in.

Nannie was a traditionalist. Cane pole, heavy line, a number six gold hook with a split shot sinker she crimped onto the line. A paper bag inside of a vegetable basket held her fishing gear along with a can of hand dug red worms, a canning jar of water and a handful of individually wrapped hard candy mints that had softened in the afternoon summer sun. Most of the time she chose to fish without a bobber and simply kept her bait moving until something hit it. I remember her battling a seven pounder into submission. Send it to a taxidermist? You must be joking. Weigh it but then filet it, bread it in cornmeal and put it into a cast iron skillet with a half inch of melted lard or Crisco. Fry until crispy and then eat. True to her poor farming background, nothing was too big to eat nor too small to keep. Pan fish deemed too small for the pan were never-the-less hauled home and incorporated into the garden providing nitrogen to help produce her sweet corn and tomatoes. “Waste not, want not.”

We were happy as larks to fish the Pettus Pond until the Bowers Big Lake was built. Situated below the Pettus Pond, looking at it from a distance was like placing fudge brownies in front of a food-a-holic handcuffed to his chair. Despite the big bluegills and largemouth bass we were catching, in my youthful mind, “The River Stix” had to be just below the Pettus dam. Somehow I got into my head, the bigger the water, the bigger the fish. In this case I was correct but as I get older I find I miss the smaller confines of the Pettus Pond or maybe I just miss my grandmother.

Today it is late April and two days past the full moon. It would seem we have had our three days of spring and summer is now upon us despite the early date. I’m probably going fishing tomorrow evening provided I get my honey do list completed. I don’t have the passion for fishing that I used to have and haven’t since 1999 when my favorite fishing partner left this world. Don’t get me wrong. I still fish but it might be for the same reason I have for my much too large garden. I know I could buy more food with what it cost me to raise mine but the food is sweeter because of the memories. I have the same sweet memories when I fish.

Don Miller has also written three books which may be purchased or downloaded at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

STRONG WOMEN

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I love strong women and that is not a chauvinist statement. I am a chauvinist…much in the same way that I am a racist. Like many I have swum in a culture both chauvinist and racist and like many folks, don’t seem to recognize it. I recognize my culture but do not allow my chauvinist and racist leanings color my thinking…until it does, DAMMIT! I have been surrounded by strong women throughout my life. From my grandmother and mother to my wife and in between, there have been few “damsels in distress.”

The first time I attempted matrimony I married a woman “just like the girl that married dear old Dad.” It was a mistake but not because she was not strong but rather because I wasn’t strong enough. The second Mrs. Miller was also strong, maybe too much, but she is the mother of my daughter, also a strong woman and mother. The third time being the charm, I married a woman nearly thirty years ago whose outlook more and more reminds me of my grandmother.

My grandmother, Addie, was born in 1901. She would not vote in her first election until 1922, three years after her marriage to my grandfather. During my lifetime she ALWAYS took her hard won constitutional right to vote very seriously and NEVER missed an election. Her early life was hard and she would have been perfectly at home riding or walking along side of a covered wagon had my grandparents been pioneers heading to parts west. Instead she joined my grandfather on a sixty-acre tract of land trying to scratch out a living on soil that was not actually from the river bottoms. It was a hard life. When I asked her how bad life was during the depression I was told, “We were so poor before the depression hit we didn’t notice it.” Those were the days when they farmed “on the lien.” While my grandparents had land and the tools to till it with, like many southern farmers, they did not have two nickels to rub together. Seed and fertilizer cost money – something in short supply after the “War of Northern Aggression” and during the depression. A system was worked out to avoid the need for money at the primary level – the growing, cutting, digging and picking level. Sharecropping, tenant farming and farming on the lien, or even mixtures of all three, were used. In my grandparent’s case, seed and fertilizer were “loaned” to them and a lien or loan was taken out against the crop, in most cases cotton, to be paid back after the harvest. It was a system that worked but one that kept most white farmers poor and black farmers in a type of “post-slavery” servitude. Springs Industries would change the culture with textile mills and at some point PawPaw abandoned the life of existing on the institution of farming and went to work for Springs. He did not quit farming but it was no longer “farming on the lien.” My grandmother did not abandon farming until she was in her nineties.

Many mornings as I stare across my computer screen while attempting to write, I can see my backyard framed like a photograph through the French doors leading out to our, for lack of a better word, patio. My wife has turned our backyard into a cluttered and jammed wildlife preserve–accent on WILD—and it is inevitable I would think of my grandmother. Her “rock garden” was just as jammed with flowers of all types and sometimes with wildlife, too. All were thrown together in a helter-skelter manner. My favorite flowers were her tall and colorful hollyhocks. I have tried to grow them but with not nearly the same success. Her backyard was just as tangled with privet hedge that had grown so high it had formed a canopy which seemed to form secret rooms. I consider myself very lucky to have had her for as long as I did – forty-nine years as she died just a few weeks past my forty-ninth birthday. I’m also greedy because I would have liked to have had her even longer.

As jammed as her rock garden was, her vegetable garden was not. Every morning she went out to the garden to chop down any weed before it could get a foothold or to hand-pick any critter that might chew on a leaf. This devotion is something I have a high regard for as I have moved toward organic gardening. Everything was quite orderly but her flowers were not. This difference was just one of several contradictions. One of the wisest and most well-read people I have ever known, she attended public school only until the eighth grade. She seemed to crave information but only if it didn’t interfere with time better spent in her garden. Even then, on rainy days, I would catch her gazing wishfully out the window. Most of her reading material revolved around her “Classics” plant catalogs, crossword puzzles and religious materials including, but not limited to, the Bible. Despite being one of the most religious people I have ever known, she rarely set foot inside of a church and I wish I had taken the time to ask why. For some reason a belief the church might be filled with hypocrisy comes to my mind but could this be my own cynicism showing? It might have been she just didn’t like being cooped up. When we “stayed the night” due to our parent’s work schedule, she did not tell stories to put my brother and me to sleep. Instead, we played “finish the Bible verse.” To this day when I hear a parent tell a child to “Be Still”, I have to add, “…and know that I am God.”

It is spring and I have begun to plant my garden. Much too big, I really try to grow food out of respect for and in memory of my grandmother. I am not very good at it and probably could buy more food than I raise with what I pay for seed and fertilizer. I am always hopeful and it is a way to stay connected to her and what she was. Every time my hoe clinks on a rock or sweat runs down my nose as I pick beans, I see her in her fields or rock garden. My favorite mental picture is of a woman in a dress “repurposed” from cotton feed sacks leaning on her hoe, big straw hat firmly in place. She is gazing across the hill to where my grandfather’s corn field was located. I wonder if she is thinking of times past…I know I am.

If you enjoyed this remembrance, please take time to “Like” my author’s page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

HALF MARATHONS, BBQ AND POT BELLIED PIGS

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I had returned joyfully from my first half marathon, a feat, if not biblical in scope, monumental for me. The ride home had replaced my post-race euphoria with a bone weary soreness and all I wanted was a hot shower, a post-shower brew or six and a nap.

I felt once I had accomplished these few, smaller feats I would be able to meet the evening along with partaking of a little BBQ with friends to celebrate my success. Instead I was faced with a lost “potbellied” pig. It was huge and it was outside of my back fence “root hogging” for all it was worth. The old idiomatic saying for self-reliance, “root hog or die,” did not seem to fit. I would say this pig had missed very few meals. It looked like a Vietnamese potbellied pig but it was huge, much larger than the three hundred or so pounds it was supposed to weigh. If it had been having to “root hog” to survive it had been doing a great job.

Linda and I debated what should be done and I was chosen to go out and “shoo” it away. My yelling must have sounded too much like “sooie” because he came to me rather than running away. There was a frayed rope around its neck…obviously a pet. He followed me into the goat pen and seemed to be quite happy to root around in left over lettuce, table scraps and goat pooh, his snout all moist and…yucky. After his late morning snack, he decided to plop down and take a nap. When I say plop, the earth moved.

What to do? There were only a few homes nearby and we knew our neighbors didn’t have pigs. How far can a pig roam? We drove to the nearest home with an unknown pig population and hit the jack pot right off the bat. Off the beaten path, at a crossroads with the Native American name of Chinquapin and Langston Circle, there was an old house in major need of under pinning and paint. The gentleman I found outside could have walked out of an “inbred cannibal finds a chainsaw horror movie” and was complete with overalls over a dirt stained “wife beater,” a sweat stained straw fedora on his head and broken down brogans on his feet. Yes, the requisite “chaw” was resting between his cheek and “toothless” gum.

When asked about a pig his response was to look under his house while explaining “I got one around here somewhere.” “Damn where did that pig get off to?” He further pointed out, in between spitting tobacco juice, “If it weren’t for my wife that hog would be in my fridge and not under my house.” I knew the feeling and decided I might ought to laugh.

Because I was having the “Motel Hell” vision of Rory Calhoun donning a pig’s head and picking up a chainsaw, I decided to bring the pig to its owner rather than the other way around. Doing so, I found out a lot of interesting facts about pigs. They won’t jump into the back of a pick-up and refuse to “walk the plank” onto it. Too heavy to lift without a front end loader, something I had, but once again “Piggy” was too smart for my own good. We were going to have to walk back…and I was already beat. Up Highway 11 and then left onto Chinquapin, “Piggy” and I were looking at a half mile uphill climb in what had become a moderately hot mid-day sun.

My education would continue. People look at you “funny” when you are out “walking your hog.” Some laughed and pointed fingers, others laughed and ran off the road although they recovered before doing any damage. I also found out pigs will run when they realize they are headed home and very quickly I might add, eleven to fifteen miles per hour. They don’t run in a straight line either, more like a destroyer trying to avoid torpedoes. To put this in perspective, I had just completed a half marathon running an averaging six and one half miles per hour. I was outclassed by a pig and in a full sprint to keep up.

Thankfully, despite the old saying “sweating like a pig”, pigs don’t have many sweat glands and when pigs become overheated they become “mule” like and simply lay down where they are. I say thankfully because I wanted to lay down next to him. Can pigs have a heat stroke? Yep. I had another thought involving the old Southern idiom, “As happy as a dead pig in the sunshine,” but was a little concerned which of us would be the “smiling” dead pig. Thankfully, we both survived. After a bit of rest, “Piggy” slowly sat up and continued on his way…at a much slower pace.

Later in the evening, after finally getting my shower and nap, I found myself at the Green River BBQ in Saluda. It was probably just my imagination but for some reason the pulled pork and ribs tasted just a bit sweeter. It also could have been the adult beverages I was trying to rehydrate with or the mental vision of a “potbellied” pig squirming to get under an old front porch.

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING can be downloaded for $1.99.
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in FLOPPY PARTS for $.99.
“Southern Stories of the Fifties and Sixties…” in PATHWAYS for $3.99.
All may be purchased in paperback.

BLACK SNAKES AND A NAKED WOMAN

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I have a fear of snakes. Not a phobia of snakes. Just given the choice of petting a kitten or petting a snake I’m going to pick the kitten…every time! While I don’t have a hatred of snakes I also don’t want to live with them. We have nearly ninety acres of woodlands, streams, hills and valleys. They need to stay out there where they belong. Just after we moved in to Hemlock Hills, we found snakeskins…loooooong snakeskins as in five feet plus and they weren’t out in the woodlands, streams, hills and valleys. We found them under the house, in the attic and behind the paneling cladding our bead board walls. The next spring, we would find out where those snakeskins came from.

It was a late March day when I first made the acquaintance of one of my black rat snakes. Laying in the sun, he was not nearly as scared of me as I was of him…or her. How does one tell? How many steps do you run when you first see a snake lying next to your foot? My escape was more of a combination hop and lunge followed by three rapid steps before my mind said, “Shut it down, it was a black snake and nothing poisonous.” It was a huge reptile, as was its mate. They were a matching pair of near six footers I saw together several days later. Both had recently shed their skin and their black skin seemed to glisten in bright sunshine.

Late one afternoon I saw my three puppies sitting outside the back door leading onto our combination back porch wash room which was adjacent to our kitchen. As I continued past them I told them, “You can sit there and wait but your Mommy (Linda Gail) is not here.” There was no reaction except for wagging tails and their attention seemed to focus on the back door which rarely closed on its own and was always slightly ajar. My attention was also drawn to the door when I noticed six inches of rat snake tail peeking out from underneath. Oh pooh! I ran around and went in the front, jogged to the kitchen and found the rat snake occupying the kitchen, back porch and steps leading to it…ALL AT THE SAME TIME! I stepped toward Snakey hoping it would retreat. It did, right under the dryer. Crap! Okay if I rock the dryer maybe I can entice it to move…but it might move right up my britches leg. If I crawl on top of the dryer maybe I can shake it enough to make Snakey move…that is just where Linda found me. “What are you doing?” She was not happy or impressed with my answer. We decided to open the porch door and close the kitchen door and wait it out. It must have worked.

Every time I watch NCIS reruns and the Mike Franks’ character is featured I remember my favorite of many favorite Mike Franks’ quotes,

“But the memories we make.
We fill the spaces we live in with them.
That’s why I’ve always tried to make sure that wherever I live,
the longer I live there
the spaces become filled with memories –
of naked women.”

My space is filled with memories, but of only one naked woman. I was and am truly blessed. I smiled at the vision of my bride sprinting nude from our old fashioned bathroom. Sprinting and yelling, “Snake, Snake, Snake!” I imagined the snake, a five-foot plus black rat snake, yelling in my head, “Naked Woman, Naked Woman, Naked Woman,” as it tried to climb the wall behind her. We had returned late to our old non-air conditioned home. The late July heat and humidity were still evident when Linda Gail decided to bathe. Believing the bright overhead incandescent light bulb simply added to the heat, she had entered the bathroom in the dark and after beginning to run her water, stripped, reached down and plugged in the small lamp that sat next to the lavatory. As the light dimly flooded the small bathroom, she found herself staring face to “forked tongue” with a snake that was coiled below the short electrical cord. Typically male, my attention was drawn to the vision of a fit, well put together woman with fabulous…EYES, running naked through the house and not on the snake that was trying to escape in the other direction. There is always a price to go with the vision I was enjoying, the snake had to be removed but first I had to find it. “Here Snakey, Snakey, Snakey!”

I know a lot of people will ask, “Why did you not kill it?” Someone sold me on the fact that black rat snakes were predators willing to eat everything from mice, rats and birds to other snakes, including the poisonous ones and if hungry enough their own species. I would agree that this was sound advice. Until they met unfortunate ends we had no snake or rat problem. They were dispatched to “snake heaven” by an over eager, snake despising home renovator who believed all serpents were minions of the devil. Exit my snakes, enter mice, rats and copperheads. I really don’t have problems with copperheads when they are where they are supposed to be and my yard is not where they are supposed to be. I have two Blue Heeler puppies who think they have been placed on this earth to rid it of all serpents. Not a problem until they get bit by a copperhead and they have been, a couple of times, and have never learned a lesson. Because of this fact, I have found myself rescuing our legless non-poisonous little friends by putting them over the fence with the strong admonishment, “Now don’t come back!” Why don’t they ever listen?

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
“Inspirational true stories” in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING can be downloaded for $1.99.
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in FLOPPY PARTS for $.99.
“Southern Stories of the Fifties and Sixties…” in PATHWAYS for $3.99.
All may be purchased in paperback.

THINGS GOING BUMP IN THE NIGHT

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Viewed from a distance, sitting on top of a small hill and surrounded by hemlock, poplars and black walnuts, our old farmhouse looks like it might be haunted and must be inhabited by all types of “haints”, poltergeists or spirits. This assumption is especially fitting when viewed during the darkness of night. Some of my students have even made comparisons of Casa de Miller to the “Bates’ Motel” of Alfred Hitchcock fame. So haunted it looks, in the thirty years we have lived here not one Halloween trick-or- treater has had the intestinal fortitude to come to our door despite the brightly burning outside light. I have to admit I have seen unexplained movements just inside of my vision’s periphery and have heard noises I just could not explain as the “creakings” of an old house. “I ain’t afraid of no ghost!”

Built in 1888, it sits on top of oak timbers milled from the land it was built upon. Although we did not know it at the time, our old home had beadboard walls and ceilings to go with pine flooring, wavy lead glass windows, and was covered by tin shingles. It also sat bathroom-less with no plumbing or electricity until 1956. My guess is that most of the winter functions “back in the day” took place in the small kitchen due to the heat produced by the cook stove and the close proximity to the path leading to the distant outhouse. The old house also had no insulation until 1956 when shredded paper insulation was blown into the walls. Sixty years later, my guess is the insulation has compressed just a wee bit. Mr. Copeland, Hemlock Hill’s previous owner, was a fount of information with a former minister’s well developed “sense of the spoken word.” In preparation for his retirement, he had purchased the house and land in the 1950’s after it had sat empty for several decades. Later it would be inhabited by human beings off and on until Mr. Copeland finally retired from “preachin’ the Gospel” in the late Seventies. I say “inhabited by human beings” only because it was and still is inhabited by more than just two-legged animals and their four-legged pets as we found out when removing the cheap paneling and ceiling tile covering our beadboard walls and ceilings.

While moving in we noticed the quilting room, complete with quilting racks and their supports, had no paneling or ceiling tile. Mr. Copeland had converted the quilting room into his study and informed us the whole house was done with the old-fashioned beadboard the study sported. He had put cheap quarter-inch paneling up to help insulate the house. Really? Quarter-inch? The next month or so “lifetime” was dedicated to the removal of the ceiling tile and paneling. We found out two things. Similar to his verbal skills, Mr. Copeland believed if one nail would do the job, four ought to be used…more if there happened to be a pine knot nearby. His philosophy seemed to be “Nothing done could be overdone.” The one-by-four-inch strips of wood that held the ceiling tile were almost impossible to get down because of the four ten-penny nails spaced every foot or so. Our second discovery was that Mr. Copeland had no issue about covering up dirt dauber nests or bird pooh. The same was true of the paneling but, at least, he used the small paneling nails…thousands of small paneling nails. There were also several large snakeskins found, not only in the attic but in other rooms as well. Okay…where there are snakeskins….

Old houses make noises. Creaks and groans make me wonder if there is a “life” existing inside of our old home. There were other noises that could not be explained away as just the “settling” of the old house. Some of the ghostly noises we heard emanated from the old attic and a downstairs…for lack of a better descriptor… “cubby hole” in the upstairs master bedroom. Thumps and squeaks with the pitter-patter of little feet led us to believe that there had to be a herd of mice in our downstairs “cubby hole.” There were also those periodic booming sounds as something traversed the metal roof during the darkest moments of the night that didn’t sound like a mouse. One night Linda and I decided to explore the “cubby hole” and its strange noises not really wanting to find a colony of mice. We didn’t. Instead, we found a colony of flying squirrels. It’s amazing what the width of a tail will do to your mood, especially when one of the “big eyed” rodents decided to make his getaway by gliding from a rafter to a small opening that led to the outside. “Rocket J. Squirrel” didn’t stay there. Later we would find colonies in unused chimneys, behind my books in the study. One “little gamester” would send our indoor cat “Minnie Muffin” into a “hissy fit” as it glided back and forth between the fireplace mantle and bookcase in the study. The booming noises on the roof? We still have no idea and just named it a “boomer.”

Typically, male, I came in from a morning of cutting and splitting wood, pulled off my boots and socks, stuffed the socks into the boots and left them in the hallway next to our staircase…for about two weeks. Linda finally took me to task, firstly, over leaving them for her to trip over and secondly, because, according to her highly developed sense of smell, they stank like something dead. I took offense to the idea that my boots stank until I took out a sock and found what I thought was a dead rat rolled up in it. Our simultaneous “GROSS!” exclamation changed to an “OH NOOOOO!” exclamation when it turned out to be a flying squirrel. From here our explanations of its unfortunate demise took two different paths. I said that death was due to it rolling up in the sock and becoming trapped. My love explained that it met the grim reaper after having breathed the stench of my boots.

We may have become too used to the creaks and groans that our home emits…or maybe to the ghosts, spirits or flying squirrels who decided that our home was just too crowded for them. I just don’t hear them anymore and it makes me feel just a bit sad. Those scratches made by the real mice? That’s another story or five for another day.

If you enjoyed this story, you might be interested in Don’s books which maybe downloaded on Kindle
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING $1.99 on Kindle at http://goo.gl/DiO1hcX
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu “Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V
All maybe purchased as paperbacks.

A GOAT IN THE WELL

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My Bennett family friends had given my wife a tape of a minister delivering the African-American version of a hellfire and brimstone sermon using the story of a goat that had fallen into a well to provide an example of “shaking bad things off and then stomping them down.” The old farmer, not sure of what to do, had decided to bury the goat where it was but the old goat had other ideas. As the soil landed on the goat’s back, he would just shake it off and then stomp it down until finally he had raised the level of the bottom of the well so that he could jump right out. The morale of the story being “No matter how bad things are, just shake them off and stomp them down.” As a child I had heard a variation involving a frog that had fallen into a milk pail and saved himself by kicking so hard he churned the milk into butter. Since then I have heard similar stories using a donkey. For my purposes, I’ll stay with the goat because, for a short period of time, we decided to raise goats.

Linda Gail and I did not actively think out the process and say, “We need to go out and get a goat.” No, as you can tell from my other stories, rarely do we think out anything. A friend of my wife had a goat but because of an impending move, he needed to find a home for the aptly, if not creatively named, Nannie. Nannie, a pet from birth, had been imprinted upon by humans and could not understand why she wasn’t included at the dinner table. There were many times she would startle us. After having found a way out of her little compound and seeing the back door open, she would push her way into the kitchen and say hello. Hello!

Later, when I decided that putting a goat on a leash was not a good idea, I created a fenced-in paddock around a stream covered in briars, small trees and Kudzu and complete with a little goat lean-to. We purchased two Alpine milking goats and stood by watching our new acquisitions in the middle of their plush pasture…starving to death. They wouldn’t eat. A local goat authority, and character in his own right, told me they were too “high fa lutin’” and needed a briar goat to teach them what to eat. He didn’t say, “briar”; he said “Brraaaaar goat.” Then he sold me one for thirty-five dollars. Enter Newt, as in neuter or what is known as a steer goat. It was Newt’s responsibility to teach Nugene and Nicholette what to eat…which turned out to be pretty much anything. Did you pick up on the “N” names? Blame my wife.

Newt was a goofy looking thing. Gray in color, heavy bodied with the skinniest of legs, he had two misshapen horns that gave him an expression of perpetual awe. Turning his head to the side, he always had the look of someone who had a question…like maybe “Why did you cut them off?” Also, he was, first and foremost, a pet. Like Nannie, Newt believed he should be included in all family activities… and in many cases was. Our briar goat was more curious than most cats and this sometimes got him into trouble without the safety net of having nine lives. Once, while staked out in a specific area to eat kudzu, he decided to stick his nose into a hornet’s nest. When I saw him next, his head was the size of a basketball. He was about to choke to death because the dog collar tightened due to his rapidly expanding neck. I quickly released him and then waited for him to die when all of the poison from his head reached his heart. I watched his head literally deflate like the oft spoken of “nickel balloon.” After all of that trauma, he still survived!

One of our Alpines once needed a transfusion…at three in the AM. I was sent home to retrieve Newt to bring him back to the animal hospital so he could supply the blood for the transfusion. With no way to actually transport a goat, I stuffed him into the cab of my pickup and off we went. Thank goodness there were few vehicles on the road at three o’clock in the AM… but there was this one drunk. The look I got from him as he eyed the cab was “Son, that is one ugly closing-time honey!”

Periodically, the old cistern that served as our water source needed to be cleaned and serviced. I discovered the hard way that if the level of sand in the bottom of the dyke accumulated too high, that sand would get into the backflow valve causing it to stay open and the pump would lose its prime. One summer morning I found myself having to clean the dyke and to replace the aforementioned valve. Newt decided he would join me, lending whatever “moron” support I might desire. I thought it was cute but would not think so a few minutes later.

My guess is that Newt’s lineage came from a mountain goat because he always liked to climb to the highest point – up onto a stump, or up onto a rock or into the back of my pickup truck and once even onto the cab. As soon as we got to the cistern, he hopped up on top of the corrugated metal sheet cistern cover and disappeared, in the blink of an eye, when the metal sheet gave way. The look on his face was priceless as was mine I am sure. He was a tall goat and I could clearly see his head peering over the top of the cistern, his face mirroring the “What the f…?” question running through my mind. I remembered the story of the goat in the well but decided burying him was out…although when he decided to explore the hollowed out cave behind the dyke I thought I might have to. When he came back into sight, he stumbled and broke off the backflow valve. For a moment, I dared to ponder how goat BBQ might taste.

All’s well that ends well, I guess. With a lot of straining and pulling, I extracted the hundred and fifty-pound goat from the well and then replaced the backflow valve. Later I had to make an uncomfortable phone call to my wife explaining why she might want to boil any water we might drink or cook with for a while. I understood salamander pooh was okay but just wasn’t sure about goat pooh. Was it my imagination or, for a while, did our drinking water taste a lot like a wet wool blanket smelled?

If you enjoyed this story you might also enjoy:
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING by Don Miller #1.99 on #Kindle goo.gl/DiO1hcX

“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle
http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu

“Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

TOTALLY ILL EQUIPPED

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BELIEVE IT! Our forefathers were built of sterner stuff!
Our power is off and I am writing this by virtue of the wonderful modern technology we possess, a battery powered laptop. I am also freezing despite the roaring fire I have going and the worry I feel that my lower than normal wood reserves will dwindle to nothing before Blue Ridge Coop gets the power back on. It can’t be much above freezing in here. I also wonder how previous generations survived. You see, here in the “Dark Corner” of upstate South Carolina, we are having a major winter event. I live in the South where most of our “snow storms” would be classified as a mist if it were rain and an inch of snow can bring everything to a screeching halt…except the dairy and bread baking industry. Ours was a doomsday forecast with copious amounts of predicted snow falling followed by freezing rain and sleet followed by more snow. We are on the thin line separating more freezing rain from more snow. I pray we are on the snow side of that line and as dawn breaks I see we probably were. It looks to be some six to eight inches of compacted snow and ice. So let’s get the power back on okay?

Nearly thirty years ago, my wife and I decided to purchase a farmhouse built in 1888. Built on top of oak timbers milled from the land, it had bead board walls and ceilings, pine flooring, wavy lead glass windows, all covered by tin shingles. Thirty years ago we were big on “ambience,” today we are big on “KEEPING WARM!”

The old house sat empty from the Forties until 1956. It also sat bathroom-less with no plumbing or electricity and no heating system other than the five fire places and the wood “cook stove” sitting in the kitchen. It is my guess most of the winter functions “back in the day” took place in the small kitchen due to the heat produced by that the cook stove…and the kitchen’s close proximity to the path that lead to the distant outhouse. The old house also had no insulation until 1956 when shredded paper insulation was blown into the walls. Sixty years later my guess is the insulation has compressed just a wee bit. Thankfully we added a modern “edition” that is well insulated but still the temperature just can’t be much above freezing in here…can it?

Can you imagine keeping five fireplaces and a wood stove fed during the winter months? We found a broken cross cut saw, forgotten in a closet, which I am sure is a tribute to the “stuff” the original owner’s had. I have a top of the line, modern chainsaw and since my last bout of sciatica from splitting wood with an axe and maul, a yearning for a hydraulic splitter. I can’t imagine keeping those fireplaces fed with modern technology much less with just an axe and crosscut saw. Did they just freeze if someone comes down with sciatica? I hear people “yearning for the good old days.” Really? Maybe simpler, less stressed out days. More time to spend with family instead of trekking to and from the office maybe…. Just remember “more family time” might be sitting around the kitchen stove for the heat or family wood cutting and splitting expeditions.

YEAAAAAAA! THE POWER’S BACK ON! Quick turn up the heat! Wait, the furnace thermostat says it’s a balmy sixty degrees. Sure seemed colder. Yes, they were built of sterner stuff…or thicker blood.