Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Welcome to my sleepy, disjointed Sunday posting. AKA--I Gots Nothin'.

I've been thinking of sense memory, particularly of smell. My sister-in-law once pointed out how potatoes baking in the oven smell like brownies at a certain point. She's right and for some reason a story is gurgling up inside of me using that as a jumping off point. One of my unhappily domestic stories probably. Every time I start a story indoors it becomes funny and unhappy at the same time. I'm not sure why that is. Okay, maybe I do, but I don't want to talk about it. Senses are funny that way.

I haven't wailed on my arch nemesis Newport Utilities in a while. Last night we had one of our frequent power outages. Went off at 1:30 a.m., right in the middle of my anime night. I do so hate having my "stories" interrupted. It shuddered back on around 3:30, but by that time I was in full insomnia mode and didn't get to sleep until 5:30 this morning.

Wondering what Friend Scott is up to--must give him a call and see.

Great police blotter title in the Newport Pie Hole Plain Talk last Sunday.

Mullet-man makes off with purse

Self-explanatory really. Mulleted man makes off with purse, but I now have:

Have you seen the mullet-man, the mullet-man, the mullet man.... running through my head. Oh, Caleb Abramson--you witty devil, you. Thanks for the ear worms.

Happy Sunday

Peter Cole, my lovely editor from Issue 3 of Keyhole, left word that they mentioned me in conjunction with that issue of Keyhole on The Emerging Writer's Network. So that's really cool. Keyhole #4 is soon to be available, so you should pre-order a copy. T.J. Forester has a piece in it. T.J. has hiked most of the Appalachian Trail--several times over--and we've had some nice conversations about Max Patch and Hot Springs--SMB neck 'o the woods.

I've got a story called Mr. Black Takes a Sunbath going live in October on Insolent Rudder's Fall issue. It's a fun piece set in the 1960's about a young tomboy who runs away for a few hours after assaulting her sister with a Johnny West action figure. While she's away she witnesses the neighborhood eccentric taking a sunbath. It's one of my favorite new stories and has lots of fun period details like Wonder the Rocking Spring Horse, WAPE AM(the big Ape) radio out of Jacksonville, baby oil and iodine tanning lotion--and stuff like that. I'll give you a link when it goes live.

In other buzz--lookit!


That dirt dauber is totally dragging home a big fat spider for dinner! The neat thing is that he was walking backwards--I turned the photo on its side so you could see better but he's walking backwards up a wall with it. A pretty long ways too. Guineas have cleared the place of ticks. Even with the yard all grown up, I have no ticks. Wasps are going into their aggressive crazy stage right now. I've gotten stung twice. Last night, one of those enormous night flying hornets came in the bedroom. I thought I trapped it in the light but when I went to release it this morning it wasn't there anymore. Which is sort of scary because I now don't know where it is.

Buzz. Happy Sunday.

Yet another stormy sky for you this Sunday. We've been getting plenty of rain here, at least.

The guineas, bless their little Pavlovian hearts, have become conditioned to the sound of the dog food bin clattering open. They come when I call. You know that song Beverly Hills by Weezer--it's one of my favorites. Anyway, there's a backup chorus in that song that goes, "Gimme, gimme". Did I mention I love that song? Anyway, I've altered it for when I call the guineas.

Beverly Hills - That's where I want to be! (Guinea Guinea)
Living in Beverly Hills...
Beverly Hills - Rolling like a celebrity! (Guinea Guinea)
Living in Beverly Hills...

So, yeah--I got prehistoric farmyard birds who answer to Weezer. So sue me.

Happy Sunday.

My parents were best friends. They slept in separate bedrooms and each had their own interests and activities. My mother took me to art openings, the symphony and the ballet. My father took me to boating, fishing, hunting and horsey events. My siblings were much older and I got to be my mother's daughter and my father's son. I was dreadfully spoiled by my father--that much is very true. He took great joy in making me happy.

It was easy to be overshadowed by my mother, she was like a force of nature--but he never minded and quietly went about restoring wooden boats, woodworking and fishing, his greatest passions. He was funny and loved to laugh, turning bright red and tearing when he was really tickled. He was courtly and chivalric with a deep sense of justice. He never really got it that life wasn't fair. He always thought that it should be.

I never imagined my parent's relationship to be a passionate one--other than the deep respect and affection they showed to each other. When I packed up the house after he died, I came across his love letters to my mother. They were works of art penned in my father's Victorian scrawl and I realized his was a great love and so much that I had not understood became clear.

My father never wore his undershirt to the dinner table. Not once.

He was fond of saying when he became exasperated with me--when I did not behave as he thought I should, "I just don't understand you!" In the weeks before he died, as I sat by his bedside, I think he finally did understand. He finally understood that I was just like him.

Happy Sunday. Happy Father's Day. I miss my Daddy.

She liked dogwood flowers and sunning herself until her skin was hot. You could smell the baby oil and iodine rising in the summer heat as she turned ever so slightly orange and freckled. She liked to fish and sat with her eyes closed holding onto her rod as if she could charm a fish to biting. My father patiently untangled the endless snarls she created in those Penn reels.

She laughed and accepted his rod to continue fishing, saying, "Gordian knot, again."

It was his way of tenderness though he sputtered and cursed about wasting tackle on her.

Then she would close her eyes again with that half smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She lived on the verge of laughter.

She made pineapple and mayonnaise sandwiches on Sunbeam bread that became cold and mushy in the cooler. They were like sandwich pudding by the time we broke them out over the cobia hole in Port Royal Sound, but nothing was better in that blazing sun with the sharks circling our eels. She would hand me a Fresca before popping the top of her Schlitz Malt Liquor--so cold it had turned to beer Slushie.

Her humor and wit is what I remember best of her. Even at the end, with the cancer and the pain and the dying, she looked across the road from our house where a house trailer had been put and said, "See? I told you I would die if they put a trailer on our street. Now look at me!"

The main thing my mother left me was by myself.

Today I received a Chinese curse in my fortune cookie. I didn't eat it in hopes of it not coming true. I don't want my life to be any more thrilling than it has been. Scott almost got into a fist fight in the middle of the Chinese. Not his fault, the guy just wouldn't leave him alone and seemed determined to start something. Luckily, a sheriff's dept. employee was there to keep the idiot off of him.

On the way home, I saw a whorehouse they had painted then turned into a church. The placard on the outside said, "Jesus redeemed us from the scourge of the law." Am I the only one who sees the irony in that?

Happy Sunday.

They eat the eyes in Morocco, I'm told. Actually, I haven't just been told that--I've seen pictures.

This is about the only time they will cozy up to one another--when there is small ruminant kibble for the offering.

Chops has the most beautiful fleece now. He never got back to that rusty brown color he was when he came here a year ago. I'm guessing that was his first fleece. He's quite a bit younger than Mutton. Mutton's fleece is very dense but looks like a bunch of fiber fill that got tossed in the washer. Chops's is soft and very uniform. I don't know much about fleeces, but I can tell that Chops has the better one. It's almost time to drag them back up on the porch and shear them again. The bags from last year are still back there.

It's the shanks of the month and I am dreaming of having lean protein and fresh vegetables to eat again. I swear, I've been craving salmon sashimi in the worst way imaginable. I can just see the stuff sliding off my fillet knife.

Cartoon Network is showing one of my favorite Miyazaki films tonight at 7:00. Howl's Moving Castle is a really delightful film that your kids will love and it won't be a stretch at all for you to enjoy it as well. Christian Bale voices Howl in the English dub. Trust me--you will love this anime.

I've been watching the stunning Otogizoshi--gorgeous animation and story, but not for the under 14 set. It's about a warrior princess and is full of Noh dancing and historical references in the first arc of the story. Also, very dynamic fight scenes and the corresponding gore that goes with them.

Happy Sunday.

'Cause it's purty. And I lourves it.

Happy Sunday

Mutton has grown all his fleece back. When people say sheep say "Baa", unless they have spent much time with sheep, they tend to think it's a sweet sound. It's not. It's a low pitched hoarse sound, more like "Blah". It sounds like they are clearing their throats. At least, that's what Mutton and Chops sound like.

Anyway, Mutton says, "Blah", which might as well mean, "Happy Sunday".

Yesterday Sonya, my ex-goat, had her very first kid! Peggy called me all excited. Sonya dropped it in the field, but all was well. A little buckling. He's a nice combination of Leonard and Sonya. He has Sonya's eyes and spots, and Leonard's stripe down his back.



He's in the house now being spoiled rotten. Peggy says Sonya and he did very well at the mother and baby thing. It looks like this may be the beginning of Peggy's kidding storm. I expect that Didi won't be far behind in her delivery--and Peggy's Sammi is about to pop any minute now.

If you want to share the anticipation of the kidding season, do head over to Hidden Haven Homestead for all of the adorable baby goat cuteness you can stand!

Happy Sunday!

I went off the mountain this morning to get some milk down at the Citgo. I actually didn't get up until noon this morning and didn't really take note of the coldness until I went out. After yesterday's two hours of snow, today was bright and sunny--but very cold at this elevation. One nice thing about the sheep. They are very pretty out there with snow blowing on them. They have shelter, but being Shetland sheep, they don't seem to mind the cold. And I don't worry so much about them in their four inch thick fleeces like I did the goats. Goats shiver in the cold and look miserable and you feel guilty that you can't bring them in the house.

I was surprised that the creek was coated with a slick of ice in the sun. The clarity of the water is so amazing at this time of year and I'm soothed by its brilliance. It's a nice change from the stagnant pools the drought caused all summer long.

Happy Sunday. Stay warm.

They tell me in times gone past that the creeks would freeze solid and stay that way until April. They tell me the snow would fall and stay there for three or more months. This is a creek that children would cross, their legs wrapped in burlap, in midwinter to reach the old Bell Hill school. The beavers have stilled the flow of the water allowing it to freeze over.

We had a few days of being cold and frozen. But it will be in the sixties today and all will be fluid again.


Happy Sunday!

Max is in a big pout because I spent all day yesterday developing a new Chocolate Cake recipe and he didn't get none! None at all!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days and that I blew off my FPF article on Friday. I'm in my post X-mas stress down period. I'll make it up to you next Friday when I take you through this Mocha Fudge with saffron orange filling experience. It tastes like a Terry's dark chocolate orange on the inside. I think the only thing that possibly could improve it is Grande Marnier.

I'm going to upload a new piece to editred tonight if it ever lets me sign in. It's a short piece, but I have plans for it so I won't publish it here. It's called "Dog Fishing" and it's about my brother and his dog, Zeke. It starts like this:

"With a fly rod, he becomes Nureyev. This man I watched grow from a gangling teen with little grace, inexplicably becomes all that is elegance in form and movement. I was not sure exactly when it happened, but there he was and we were decades older. He stands on the platform of the flats boat and becomes poetry."

Looking up from the crazy stretch of the 15th to my road, there is a caravan trailer that the mountain reclaimed. It grew trees around it, embracing it, and lovingly decorated it with vines. There are many old bones of human habitation here. Some are old cars, sentinel chimneys and steps to nowhere. They stand, waiting for people long since dead, long since gone. And in the spring, their few living legacies, the flowers and alliums, will poke their heads above ground and weep for dead gardeners.

I woke to blowing snow that could not stay this morning. The weather, like the people, is transient here. It comes and goes, and while it is here, it pounds the earth. And when it is gone, it melts into the streams and springs and is never seen again.

It is folly to think that we make a lasting impact here. We are but snowflakes blowing on the mountain. The mountain doesn’t care that we leave our footprint here. She will lovingly cover it and take it into herself. Just as she does our bones, our lonely bones left in holes on the hillsides.

Happy Sunday.

Ummm...Isn't she a bit young?!!!....And...like...well...ANOTHER SPECIES?





Now that we have all had a good giggle at the sheep's expense...Let me direct you to Northview Diary where there is a wonderful story about Toots, The Miracle Christmas Calf. It's a much better Sunday read than looking at my depraved sheep.

Happy Sunday

Today was one of those dirty gray days where the light fell like over-used mop water being thrown from the sky. So, I dug around in my photo archives for the sort of sparkling clear winter morning that it really should have been. But wasn't. But we can pretend.

Max continues his interaction with the geese. A few stray tail feathers tell me that he has won a few of the encounters. But every time I see him, he is running for his life with a goose attached to his rear end. The other goose is usually making a ruckus while this is happening. I interpret this as hysterical, mocking goose laughter.

It has come to that difficult point in the year where I ask myself, "Decorate for Christmas? ...Or don't decorate for Christmas?"

Please understand that I have become a bit superstitious about this. Every time I've really done this in a big way, something drastic and calamitous has happened.

I think it began during that memorable Yuletide fifteen years ago when I, thrilled that I had someone in my life I could do this for, went all out with the Christmas thing. For whatever reason...perhaps my family's intensity when we do the Christmas thing is just way over the top or something...I awoke in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to find my lover standing over me holding a butcher knife. What followed was me depositing said lover at a mental ward for a forced period of confinement and ended up with me using my chainsaw to cut down the Christmas tree...in my living room...and then stomping on the delicate glass balls with my k.d. lang boots. My friends walked in about that time. They are still laughing.

And no...that's an entirely true story.

So, I approach this season with caution. Lest someone go all cuckoo-for-cocoa-pops just because I opened a big ole can 'o Martha Stewart all over their ass.

Happy Sunday.

This photo has nothing to do with what I’m writing about today. Or maybe it does. But it’s one of my favorite photos. I took it in Newport. It's a motorcycle tombstone. Really.

One of my favorite Sunday activities has always been reading the Sunday paper. Wherever I have lived, it has been part of my Sunday ritual. When I lived in the cities, I really enjoyed the trip to the place where I’d buy my paper. For years, I never kept a subscription because the trip was part of it, you know?

In Atlanta, it was Oxford Books, back when there was an Oxford Books. In Britain it could be any number of newsagents where I’d go to pick up a Telegraph or Guardian…and maybe one of those chocolate oranges. They had them in dark chocolate. In Dallas, it was the closest paper rank to wherever the crowd was having brunch that day. And in L.A, well, I can’t remember but it was probably close enough to walk to but you took the car anyway.

When I first moved here, there was no paper delivery. I’d drive to Black’s Market and hope they had a paper. Now, they do have delivery. I get the local paper, The Newport Plain Talk.

I spend a lot of time with this newspaper. I even spend hours in the library going over the past issues. Not so much for the news. If I wanted the news, I’d get the Knoxville paper. No, The Plain Talk unerringly reports on things that spark my imagination. I get so many of my story ideas from the back issues. Sometimes they are very sad things. Sometimes they are unintentionally funny. Sometimes they are just funny. I’ve been saving clippings for a while. I understand that that’s how Carl Hiaasen works when he writes fiction. And he’s in Florida where they have gobs of stories like this.

I think my favorite part of The Plain Talk is the “From the Record” page. These are the sheriff’s and police blotter reports. My goat theft showed up there.

For instance, on Friday in the police report section they had one entitled “Where’s the Beef?” This guy goes into a local grocery store and shoplifts seven rib eye steaks. An employee grabs him by the shirt and the guy rips free, losing his shirt yet somehow managing to hold onto the meat. The shirtless meat snatcher is spotted running through town and finally seen running down the railroad tracks with the meat. They didn’t catch him. The incriminating evidence has probably been grilled and consumed at this point.

Then today, we had this gem. “Driver swerves to miss hog, ends up in ravine”. The headline is pretty self-explanatory. Woman swerves to miss a large hog crossing the street and ends up doing more damage than if she had just hit it and had a pig pickin’. She was okay. They didn’t mention how the hog was. Pretty upset, I’d imagine.

Anyway, that's one of the places where I get my story ideas. Really, you can't make this stuff up. But you can put it in a blender and come up with something like Porn and Donuts.

Happy Sunday

The moon, this night, some weeks back ate the sky with its brilliance. I really regretted my lack of skill with these sorts of photographs. All I could do was stand and gape at the night. Stare, dumbfounded, as the night was consumed.

Happy Sunday.

Jo-Jo and the Chicken Boy, Part one...is up on EditRed.

And if you are really good...I should have some Porn and Donuts for you tomorrow.

I stayed in bed a long time this morning. I don't think I felt well enough to rise until almost noon, and when I did, I could barely walk. Such is life with the Red Wolf. When emotion overflows to the point of overwhelming, as this past week has done, the Red Wolf comes out to play and gnaws on the bones of the living. He is particularly fond of my bones.

First I took a shower and stood under the hot water as long as I could bear it. I put on my crippled pants and shirt...the things I wear when my range of movement is so restricted that I can't handle buttons and zippers. I knew I was going to probably collapse onto the couch and lay there for the rest of the day. But life wasn't quite done chewing on me.

I hobbled out onto the front porch and looked toward the pasture.

The Babies were there. They were back. They had either escaped from where they were being restrained or whoever had taken them had gotten spooked and brought them back. They looked at me with sad eyes and said nothing.

"Ickle Goats!!!" I cried joyously at them and limped out to them.

They were back, but they were thinner, dying of thirst and stank of ketosis. They were also very leery and looked at my two legged form with suspicion. Wherever they were being held, they were not fed or watered properly and were treated roughly. That much was clear. Goats returning from the wild wood would have been fat and would have smelled of leaf mold and pine needles. Not stale urine and starvation. And besides, my Babies would not have been able to stay away that long had they not been locked up somewhere.

Two things happened that probably facilitated their return. Betsy, The Goat Yoda, went to the stock yard yesterday for me and talked with some of the employees about the theft. And this morning, the local paper had a report titled, "Nubian Goats on the Lam", about the theft.

I forced myself to load them up in the Jeep and took them to Betsy's for safe keeping. It's just nuts. I have over 20 acres and I'm having to board my livestock thanks to the whackadoodles harassing me. It was really heartbreaking to listen to BossyToe screaming like a toddler as I walked away. But at least they will be safe there.

So, the Babies are back!

And that is indeed occasion for a Happy Sunday.

I must go lay down now.