Snow storm

Not Pioneering Stock

/ cigarman501 / 6 Comments

 

I am not pioneering stock.  My prayers were not answered.  My satellite went out at two and my power followed at five…in the AM.  It’s seven seventeen and it already seems like a lifetime.  Too much time stuck inside my head with nothing to distract me is the main problem.  At least the morning is brightening…a gray light, but at least I can see without a flashlight.

There is a beautiful winter scene outside my window…hemlocks and cedars laden with snow, their fronds drooping toward the ground.  There is an underlying silence, the sounds muffled by the snow…until a tree snaps under the extra weight of snow, sleet, and ice.  It sounds as if a war is being fought on the ridgeline above us.

It is eight oh two and the “Snowpocalypse” is upon us.  There is nothing to do but wait.  A cheery fire in the fireplace…cheery but not near warm enough.  A cast iron Dutch oven is heating water.  Cheese grits are on the menu…instant cheese grits.  Uck!  At least my coffee had perked before the power went off.

Stepping outside to bring in the wood I heard the winds on the ridges above us.  The sound of an old steam locomotive running at top speed…without the steam whistle of course.  Just a rapid chugga-chugga sound I associate with old movies I watched in my youth.  So far, we have been sheltered from the wind, but I see movement in the cypress cedar just beyond my backyard fence.

The snow, flakes once large and wet, have now changed over to sleet.  I can see my clothesline and it is covered with ice…much ice.  This does not bode well for trees or powerlines I would think.  My hothouse is without power and I worry about Linda’s plants…particularly her thirty-year-old scheffleras.  Worry…but there is not a damn thing I can do about it except feel her pain if they die.

Old poots like me are always talking about the good old days and how much better it was back then.  I wonder?  I surely wonder about the good old days the former tenants of my little piece of heaven had.  Three different sets of families left their imprints and memories before we began to add ours.  I wish their ghosts would speak to me.  I have many questions like, “How did you keep those fireplaces fed?”

Built in 1892, the old farmhouse had five fireplaces.  I am only trying to keep one burning and maybe later an old wood stove to cook on if necessary.  I can’t imagine…don’t want to imagine what it was like feeding four open fireplaces and the wood stove pumping smoke out smoke one end and heat from the other.

No, I’m not sure about those good old days especially as I look at the expanse of white between my house and the old privy.  A book comes to mind, “Ten Miles to the Outhouse,” by Willie Makeit and illustrated by Betty Don’t.  I think the cold is addling my brain…or the Jack and Coke.  Five o’clock in the PM and we still have no power, but we have seen power trucks on the move…and the power flickered once…dashed hopes in the blink of an eye.

I’ve also seen turkeys on the move.  A dozen or so all puffed up against the cold.  They look comical taking high steps trying to navigate the now five or so inches of hard packed sleet, freezing rain, and snow.  Thankfully the temperature is now hovering above freezing and it is now more snow than sleet.

The wind is still up.  Trees are popping all around.  Cannon reports in the distance.  Even if the power comes on soon there is no assurance that it will stay on, but I’ll take what I can get…damn!  A hemlock limb just hit the fence.

Light, heat, and water have returned.  At six PM the lights flickered and then held.  There was the welcome sound of air handlers kicking in and the feel of warm air.  Quick microwave something warm to eat.

This is not the worse “storm” we’ve ridden out.  Our first winter was in 1987-88 and in January we lay buried under eighteen inches…for those of you above the Mason-Dixon, that’s like you getting eighteen feet.  We were in complete shutdown mode for a week with only a VW Beetle and a Thunderbird to motivate with.  I swore I would never be without four-wheel drive again.  I think I’ve HAD to use it once since then.  An ice storm with a hurricane came through in ’93 but the four-wheel drive doesn’t work on ice.  I’ve used my four-wheel drive a lot but not because the weather dictated it.

No, I’m not pioneering stock.  There was once a time.  Now I have grown old and lazy…and hate the cold.  I think my next acquisition will be a generator.  Hopefully, I won’t need it any more than I have needed four-wheel drive.

“Bread and Milk?”

/ cigarman501 / 11 Comments

I am waiting out the approach of our first snowstorm of the winter…except it’s not winter yet!  I despise winter and for the second year in a row, winter is here early.  Mother Nature…what did I ever do to you?

Our local weather prognosticators have predicted anywhere from a dusting below us to an accumulation of twenty inches above us; possible rain, snow, sleet or freezing rain…all the previous possible or none of the previous Imma thinkin’ or hoping.  In the foothills of the Blue Ridge, we are bracing for six to eight inches…of something.  A “Snowpocalypse” by Southern standards.  I’m just going to sit here and wait until it is over and melted.  Just let the meteorologist tell me how much we got.  Since retiring from teaching, snow has offered no rewards for me.

The impending “Snowmageddon” has claimed its first victim…me.  I’m sitting not because snow is falling, it isn’t yet…wait was that a wet snowflake or a big, slow raindrop?  I’m sitting because I hyperextended my knee while cutting and splitting “emergency” wood in preparation for the attack by “Snowzilla.”  If the monster is successful with its evil-minded plan, I will at least have wood to burn should the power go out.  I’m okay, just feeling clumsy and stiff.  Thanks for askin’.

The injured knee was once called my good knee and I guess there is no particular advantage to having one good knee as opposed to having two bad ones…. I do have to flip a coin to decide which knee I should limp on and I’d just “ah soon” not to lose power by the way.  I don’t want to limp out and bring in wood to feed my fireplace.

I went grocery shopping yesterday morning before the slip with an eighteen-inch diameter log and screw up your knee event.  A stop by at Wally World is a normal activity for a Friday morning…right after my two-hour walk and coffee with a best friend, “Hawk.”

As I approached the bread area, I found bare shelves and the aisle deserted.  I expected to see customers locked in an epic battle over a loaf of French bread or such.  Maybe two ordinarily sane mothers pulling at each other’s hair, fighting for the last loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread.

The fresh Italian bread I usually buy, gone.  So was yesterday’s Italian bread and all other bread.  Same was true with the milk shelves…and eggs it seems…bare.  The milk and eggs were, to quote John Hiatt:

“Gone like a Nixon file

Gone like my landlord smile

Gone like the furniture

Gone like the rest of her”

There may be no French toast in my future.

I really don’t understand the rush for milk and bread.  I always wondered if there was a conspiracy between the weather services, bakers and the dairy industry.  Payoffs slipped under the table to just mention the possibility of snow.  If I were going to stockpile for the blizzard of the century it would include bourbon and barbeque…not bread and milk.

It is not just a “Southern Thang” I found out.  Those odd cultures above the Mason-Dixon line also rush out and sweep the bread and milk shelves clean.  Who knew?  It’s wasn’t even begun by Southerners…I believe they lie.

I am ready.  Bring your best Snow Monster.  Books to read if the satellite goes out.  Wood to burn if the power goes and batteries for the flashlights and lanterns.  Most importantly, Jack Daniels in the pantry and pulled pork barbeque in the fridge….  Okay, I did find a loaf of day-old French bread and a dozen extra-large eggs.  My bride boiled up a half-dozen but kept six for French toast.  Like a true country boy, I will survive.

Don Miller’s author’s page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Lyrics from John Hiatt’s song “Gone”.

Snow image was liberated from https://marcusashley.com/artwork/elm-tree-blizzard

OUR FOREFATHERS WERE BUILT OF STERNER STUFF!

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

In honor of our first snow storm of 2017 I am posting a story about our first winter storm of 2016.

Our power is off and I am writing this using 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 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 owners 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 came 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. Certainly seems colder. Yes, they were built of sterner stuff…or thicker blood.

If you enjoyed this you can find this story and others like it in the book “Through the First Gate.” More of Don Miller’s unique views of life, humor and Southern stories of a bygone time may be purchased or downloaded at http://goo.gl/lomuQf.

OUR FIRST WINTER

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

I normally post on M-W-F but decided to post this in the expectation of the two snowflakes that we may receive here in the foothills of Greenville County, South Carolina. I hope you enjoy. For some reason the forecast of possible snow has lost its appeal since I retired from teaching.

OUR FIRST WINTER OR HOW LONG WAS IT BEFORE THE DONNER PARTY BEGAN TO EAT EACH OTHER?

We moved into our little piece of heaven in November of 1987 over Thanksgiving break from school. We had five short days to get it done. Thirty years later we are still trying to finish unpacking. No, just joking…maybe. It was a close thing. Mr. Copeland really didn’t want to leave so he dragged his feet. His second wife, a woman thirty years his junior, wanted to leave and go back to her little piece of heaven in…Union County? The things we do for our ladies! He finally just gave up packing his “treasures” and departed. He left a whole bunch of stuff behind – books, papers, old records, even a bed. A complete set of 1956 edition Funk and Wagnall’s remained where they had always sat. Okay, younger readers, there used to be a company called Funk and Wagnall that produced encyclopedias. They were sold in grocery stores and…Encyclopedia? Oh no! Think of it as the boring part of the internet in book form. Books?

From Mr. Copeland we also “inherited” several pickup truckloads of junk. I had a 1972 blue Chevy work truck. Let me say, it looked older than its fifteen years and the two hundred or so thousand miles it had on it. Driven hard and put up wet, the paint was so bad that whatever was not rust was filmy oxidized blue. There was just enough metal to hold the rust together. The “powers that be” at our condominium complex had requested, nay demanded, that the truck not be left on the street to be seen. As I finished loading the last of Mr. Copeland’s “treasures” and began the five-mile trek to the trash dump, my faithful steed gave up the ghost or so I thought. As I coasted to a stop at the base of my drive I had just enough forward momentum to pull off to the side. A day or two later a Hispanic gentleman stopped and asked if it was for sale. I said it could be. He asked what I meant and I answered him saying that he would have to get it running. This began a really odd form of bargaining. He countered with, “If I get it running, what are you asking?” I said, “That depends. If I have to unload the trash $300. If you unload it, I’ll let it go for $250.” He unloaded it. You know, I kind of miss that old truck.

We were in our new home, well new to us. At that time, we were “younger” and stupid. We had five fireplaces and a wood stove to go with a thirty-year-old fuel oil furnace as we faced our first winter. Okay, wood stoves and fireplaces take wood and we had plenty of deadfall wood lying around but did I have a chainsaw? No, I did not even have an axe. I had not used a chainsaw in a decade. With no heat upstairs, just a couple of fireplaces, I was going to have to reintroduce myself to one. Did I have a method of transporting said wood? Oh yeah, I had just sold my truck.

That winter we received seventeen inches of snow over two days during a late winter storm. With temperatures refusing to climb above freezing, everything shut down and we were stranded for a week. With a forecast of a hundred-year storm, I purchased a chainsaw and in lieu of a truck, a wheelbarrow. “Barrowing” loads of wood sure made me miss my old Chevy. At least, we wouldn’t freeze to death if we lost power.

Our little piece of heaven is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the foot of what is known as the Blue Ridge Escarpment, or according to my Funk and Wagnall’s “a long, steep slope, especially one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights.” We sit a little over twelve hundred feet above sea level and our land rises to about fifteen hundred feet behind us. We don’t get a lot of snow at twelve hundred feet compared to what we get at fifteen and, in contrast to our northern brethren, even our big snows are lacking. Before you Damn Yankees snicker just understand seventeen inches of snow in South Carolina is like six feet of snow in Buffalo. Linda and I actually live in an area known as the Thermal Belt that is, for some reason not understood by me, a little warmer than the surrounding areas. We usually have to go “in search of snow” because of the extra warmth we receive. Again let me say it will still get cold! It especially gets cold in an old 1880’s farm house that had insulation blown into the walls about 1956. Sixty years later, insulation or not, in winter the house is still…BURRRRR!

Seventeen inches of snow closes everything in South Carolina…okay two inches will close us down like Blue Laws on a Sunday. The mere hint of snow or ice sends people into a frenzy of shopping…for milk and bread. At one time there was a theory suggesting that the dairy farmers had entered into some type of cabal with the weather services to boost milk sales. “Just sayin’!” I mean… why not a frenzy of canned goods buying? Sardines will last. With sardines, crackers and mustard I’m good for a while, especially if you replace the milk with beer or Jack Daniels. Should you not also see an increase in peanut butter and toilet paper sales?

In a song by Jimmy Buffett, “Boat Drinks,” the singer laments the cold weather and being stuck watching a hockey match. “I just shot six holes in my freezer; I think I’ve got cabin fever.” I understood the feeling. With three puppies, Linda and a TV that received only two channels “some” of the time, my incarceration was fun…for about forty-eight hours. Even hiking in the snow got old since I had forgotten to get insulated and waterproof boots. After five days of this misery, I was willing to try anything; however, with a Volkswagen bug and a Thunderbird our options were limited. We found out that the little VW got around in the snow pretty well once it could clear the drifts. I swore I would never be without four-wheel drive again and haven’t been since! Funny thing, after I bought it, I have needed it only once…for snow. But I must confess that I do use it often to haul wood…lots and lots of wood.