Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Max running through the grass. I toldja the grass was high.

It occurred to me I haven't shared a tidbit of Appalachian snake folklore I picked up earlier in the summer. It's just a smidgeon. Black snakes are plentiful here. There are the big, fat, slow kind that eat your chicken eggs and the long, thin, whippy ones that move like mercury--you never quite can catch them and if you do, they seem to move in your hands like they weren't there to begin with. The whippy ones are said to keep other snakes away, so you like to keep them around. The ones that eat your eggs also eat lots of rats and mice. The farmers say if you put your hoe handle under your arm so it can soak up your B.O. and turn it to the snake it will chase them off, but not too far off. It will stay on your farm and keep other snakes away and eat the rats--but will get out of your garden.

I can hardly wait for Pastor Jimmy's new folklore book to come out. It's going to be wonderful. I'm dying to read through all of his stories and compare some of the stuff I've heard to his versions.