Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Well, the garden hasn't been a total loss after all. I'll have to get out and work around that which survived. I've got three tomato plants that look like they are going to make it and the squash is producing. My onions haven't done too poorly despite having the tops nibbled off. So that's okay. It made them bulb really nicely. And I've got potatoes and green beans.

Today I spent most of the day in K-town seeing my kidney doctor. Afterwards I found an Asian grocery store and got some miso and some stuff to fix sushi. Real soy sauce, nori and sake vinegar. Then on to the fish market and got a dandy bit of tuna. So, I'll be endulging in tuna rolls tonight. I might slice some of this just picked squash to roll up with my tuna. That will be nice.

Mmmm...tuna.

Hope you are having a very happy Sunday.

Last year's gourds didn't develop enough wall thickness to use. Not sure why. But the seeds from those volunteered and have been spreading like kudzu up the hillside. I'm just going to let them alone and not touch them until they are dry. Perhaps leaving them on the vine will encourage some wall thickness.

I do stuff like this with them.



And bird houses. You just can't have too many bird houses.

This is really a post about seasonal freshness. But I have this dandy recipe from the Cloister's Hotel on Sea Island in Georgia that uses some of the ingredients found from farm vendors on the side of the road.

If you drive into Newport, most any day now, but especially on Fridays, you will see folks selling corn out of the backs of their pick-up trucks. It's best to take these straight home and prepare them, since corn starts to degrade from the moment you pick it. From stalk to the table in under six hours is highly recommended. Sometimes you'll see an nice bunch of scallions like these shown on the right with the dirt still clinging to the roots.

My father's parents lived next door to The Cloister's head chef many years ago. He and his wife had a herd of chihuahuas who regularly dined on roast squab brought home from the hotel.

My family has a tradition of honeymooning at The Cloister, my parents went there when they were married and my brother went there as well. The food is amazing. My mother loved to talk about her time there and the amazing food that was served. I have quite a few Cloister's recipes, honorably obtained from their old head chef.

Though you can now obtain fresh ingredients year round in most markets, there's nothing like gathering them from local sources. Enjoy the season of plenty.

Cloister's Corn Soup

1 gallon chicken stock
1 cup diced celery
3 cups diced potatoes
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 and 1/ pint coffee cream
1/2 pound diced salt pork
1 cup chopped onions
1 pound fresh corn, cut from cob
2 chopped garlic cloves
1/2 cup flour

In a large skillet, fry salt pork and save grease. Strain and remove bits of pork. Make a roux by adding slowly 1/2 cup of flour. In separate pan, fry onions, parsley, celery and garlic in a small amount of chicken stock. When greens are soft, add to roux, stirring constantly. Add remainder to chicken stock, potatoes and corn. Allow to simmer for one hour in covered pot. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Allow to cook 1/2 hour uncovered; then add cream and serve at once.

This guy stayed really still for me. He's a bit bigger than most of them out this summer. The rabbits are everywhere. The dogs aren't even paying attention to them anymore.

They look on in boredom as the hippity-hoppities pretty much run rampant all over the place. Guess I should get out my live rabbit trap plans. When I was a girl, my grandfather built me the most wonderful rabbit traps. During the Depression, he trapped wild rabbits then put them in hutches and raised them for food for his family. I think my grandmother passed off hare for chicken more than once at the boarding house they ran in Savannah, GA.

If you'd like to try building your own live rabbit trap....and it is an awfully fun thing for the kids to do....the plans for the same sort of trap my grandfather built me can be found HERE. Check first with your local fish and game department to make sure you are allowed to do this.

It's been poring rain again today. But we need it, so it is welcome.

It's the perfect sort of day for reflection. Betsy and I were chatting on the phone the other day and she was trying to recall this quote about lawn mowers and well-poisoners. Except for the lawn mower bit...it almost sounded biblical. I was intrigued enough with the idea to try to look it up and see who said it.

The saying goes that there are three types of people in the world; gardeners, lawn mowers and well poisoners. The closest attribution to the saying I've found was that it was something that Walt Disney was fond of saying. I don't know if he actually was the first to say it, or if it came from somewhere else. And he actually said "life enhancers" instead of "gardeners". But "life enhancers" sounds entirely too L. Ron Hubbard for my liking, so I'll keep with gardeners.

I suppose, if the quote was older..."lawn mowers" could have replaced "hay makers".

The gardeners are the creative force. The people who reach out and give. They are the creators dealing with the messy business of making things and making things happen.

The Lawn Mowers are those who take care of the status quo. Who mow the lawns and make the hay and take care of themselves. I understand that Disney was a bit disparaging of the Lawn Mowers. He saw them as being self-centered. I don't necessarily hold with that. The world needs the Lawn Mowers. They give a sense of order to things. I need more lawn mowing in my life.

And then the Well Poisoners. I think we all know who they are. They suck the life out of everything they touch; they spread malicious gossip; they impact the world only in the negative. And it is the only truly great enjoyment they have in life. And for that, they deserve our pity. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like if your only happiness was derived from schadenfreude?

But I'm not sure three types is enough for all the people in the world. I have these giant goldenrod like plants taking over my pasture that nothing will eat. They just sit there and grow to seven feet tall and over run everything. I've tried cutting them down, poisoning them, the damn things are seemingly indestructible. The locals call them "stick plants". Because they leave a hollow giant sticks in the ground when they die. I'm thinking we need a category of people for the stick plants. Those people who just exist and take up resources. They aren't as bad as the Well Poisoners, but they aren't actually good either.

Cousin Pastor Jimmy says Pigs will eat the stick plants...but not much else will. I'm thinking of getting me a few pigs and see if they will clear them out.

So...I'm seeing four types of people in my world. The Gardeners, the Lawn Mowers, the Well-Poisoners and the Stick Plants. I can probably come up with more.

I wonder if Dante started out with this train of thought and just got carried away?

I got nothin'. But here's a pretty picture. Not from today...it's been raining all day.

The storms have been crashing across the mountain on and off today and I haven't been up to much. I walked up to the goat shelter to refill the water and feed the goats during a rare break in the storms. Not much in the way of rain, but lots of rumblings and rushing to yank the the phone cables out of the modem.

Friend Scott relayed a rumor to me that they were getting ready to put new phone lines in. I'll believe it when I see it. It may be much like the now stale 5 year old rumor of proposed DSL. In the meantime...the phones keep exploding.

In other Friend Scott news, he was hanging out his laundry at the pink house in the holler and was stung by a wasp. Normally this would not be interesting at all. But the pink house in the holler is visible to no one because of its secluded location, so Friend Scott often will dash outside completely nekkid to do chores like hanging laundry. He was doing this when the wasp landed on his nether regions. Unfortunately, he made the situation...and pain... much worse by energetically swatting said nether regions with great force and ended up moaning on the grass in the fetal position. He's okay. It was, as usual, perhaps more than I wanted to know.

My netflix movies arrived and I curled up on the couch for my once weekly anime otaku-rama. I've just started D.N.Angel. The dogs go crazy and I see that someone is coming up the driveway.

It's Pastor Jimmy come a callin'! I was really happy to see him and Pam. They are two of my favorite people! I meant to make it to church this past weekend but just didn't seem to make it. I feel a bit guilty since I was in the middle of my book reading orgy with the new Harry Potter book and that is certainly not a good excuse.

He and Pam were out hunting for serpents, but weren't having any luck. So they decided to stop by and see me.

We had a really nice visit and he enjoyed seeing all of my stuff. He really liked my Peruvian grave dolls and is going to make some like them. We compared the versions of stories that we both knew. He asked me about the Green boy who used to live here, way back when, who shot Jimmy's great grandmother. I told him the version I knew and that the family had to leave the area after it happened. It was a really sad story. The boy was only 11, which was much younger than I thought he was.

When they left Jimmy told me he was calling me his "cousin".

I consider that to be a huge honor. I'd be very proud to be Pastor Jimmy's cousin.

I've just emerged from 24 hours of reading, with one break to sleep, to complete the 759 page Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It did not disappoint.

My nephew, Austin, got me hooked on the Potter tales while I was living in Bluffton and recovering from my last bout of illness. We were soon sneaking off to go see the first movie...then the second. At age 10, he could already quote large sections of the text verbatim. We would often get together to discuss the finer points of the story line and where we thought it was going.

I knew from the first time I read one of Rowling's books that I was reading an epic hero tale. So, this last book did not hold significant surprises for me as far as where the tale went. I knew that. Though when Austin and I had our discussions, I didn't tell him that one of his favorite characters had to die, even though I knew that was coming. It had to come since that is the fate of that character in the epic hero tale.

But Rowling has winded the tale up as expected, but with that wonderful tale telling ability of hers that is so fresh...it makes this oldest story seem so new. So, even an old scarred veteran of the hero tale like myself, can enjoy it once again with fresh eyes.

I'm quite envious of anyone first picking up this series for the first time. As I look up on my bookshelf where the now complete series holds a place of honor next to my Joseph Campbell books, Jung and Graves, I realize how much I'm going to miss this bit of mythos in my life.

I wonder if she will write something else now. She certainly doesn't need to. I wonder if she is one of those people like myself who write out of love and compulsion to the craft, without concern for what rewards it may or may not bring. Will the Harry Potter books be her magnum opus? Or has she got some other wonderful product of her imagination waiting to emerge from her pen?

So....are you reading it yet? Planning to?

Do you have a favorite character? Are you surprised I have a weakness for all things green, silver and a certain potion's master?

Happy Sunday...a good book on a Sunday is a wonderful thing.

Sick of me waxing poetic about Carver's Apple Orchard?

Too bad....I got pictures of the food this time!

I just can't help it. This is one of those home style restaurants that is still family owned and operated. It's quite simply the best restaurant in this area in its genre. Part of it has to do with the setting.

Carver's is actually a family farm orchard. The Carver family has been growing apples in this area since the '40's. The restaurant is right next to the farm stand store. During the height of the apple season, you can find bushels of apples for sale there. The kids can watch them sorting the apples as they come in from the orchard. Not only your standard varieties, but also some of the rarer heirloom apples. My personal favorite for making my apple butter is the Mountain York.

If you are vacationing in the Smokies, this is the place to shop for real home grown produce. They buy produce from the small local farmers and sell it there in the store. All in all, Carver's is a true friend to small family farm. Additionally, in the store, you will find a dazzling array of canned goods from relishes to jams that are the perfect gifts to take home to your family. They also have Appalachian specialties like lye soap, apple butters and candies. And, of course, their legendary fried apple pies are available there at the store.

Kyle Carver started his orchard in 1942, hand grafting and planting apple trees in his cornfield. The orchard now sits on 75 acres in Cosby, TN and boasts over 40,000 trees and 126 varieties of apples. There is also a stable on the property and it's fun to watch the colts with their mothers in the orchard.

I took my friends there who visited from Virginia and they went back the next day. It's just that good.

When you pull into Carver's, following the brightly colored signs on Cosby Highway, you drive through a bit of the orchard. The restaurant looks over the 75 acres. The view from the restaurant is spectacular during any season. Vistas of apple orchard stretch towards the horizon where the majesty of the Smoky Mountains meet the sky.

One of my favorite personal touches arrives at the start of each meal. The wait staff brings a basket of these amazing little apple fritters served with apple butter and a juice glass of apple cider. They are sort of like cakey apple hushpuppies, fried golden brown. You will most likely want to order a spare order of these to take home with you.

The wait staff is always friendly and makes you feel right at home. The entrees are cooked to order, so be prepared to wait a bit longer than you might at a chain restaurant. But the wait is enjoyable given the spectacular view of the mountains and orchards.

The menu is very much home style cooking. This particular trip, I had the fried catfish, fried apples and pinto beans. Everything is very reasonably priced and there are many kid friendly items on the menu. Be prepared to wait for seating if you go on a Sunday. This is one of those places that is supported by the local population and is wildly popular with the church crowd.

The prices are reasonable, the portions are just right, and I have yet to have a bad item on the menu.

Be sure to save room for dessert. I highly recommend the fried apple pie with ice cream. Served hot with the ice cream melting on top, this is a real treat. These fried popovers are really big...so you might want to share. The apple filling is spiced just right and covered with flaky pastry. It is, quite simply, the best fried pie I've ever had. Delicious!

How to get there:

I recommend taking the scenic route. Exit off of I-40 onto the Foothills Parkway about 10 miles past the second Newport exit. Enjoy the vistas as you wind through the National Park, then turn right onto Highway 321 (Cosby Highway). After driving a "ways" you will see the signs and Carver's is on the right. It's a bit of a blind driveway, so be sure to slow down when you see the signs.

The address is:

Kyle Carver's Apple Orchard
3460 Cosby Highway
Cosby, 37722
(423) 487-2419

Caidy settled her little brother on her hip and gingerly eased her way down from the loft. He was groggy and starting to cry in great gulping yowls.

“Shhhhh…Shhhh.” She said, rocking him with her body a bit before handing the baby over to her mother.

“I think he might need a bit of tar and sulphur on his head, Ma.” Caidy pulled back the cap from the nursing baby’s head.

“I think you might be right, sweet girl. Can I ask you to take care of that for me tonight?”

Caidy blew her hair out of her eyes and grinned. “Yes Ma’am!”

“Don’t you have some starvin’ chickens waiting for you?”

Caidy grinned shyly and said, “I’ll just get the pone in the oven, first.”

“You’re a good child.” Her Ma said, tucking the hungry baby closer.

Caidy busied herself with the task of getting the breakfast started. She pulled the jar of cold milk and buttermilk from yesterday from the porch. The milk had ice crystals that chugged sluggishly into the earthenware jugs that she then set on the table. She cut slices off of a whole country ham and put them in the skillet to sizzle. Soon the cabin was warming up with the rich smells of baking cornbread, biscuits and ham.

She skittered out into the cold to feed the hens. She hopefully looked into the nest boxes to see if there were any eggs, but it was still too cold and dark for the hens to be laying much. She gathered six precious out of season eggs and secreted them in her pockets. She planned to save these for her Ma.

When she came back in, stamping the snow from her feet, her mother handed over the now full and sleeping Aidin. Caidy put her little brother in the crib and covered him with the baby quilt that their neighbor Lizie had made for him.

About that time the door sprang open letting a blast of cold into the cabin which had just begun to heat up. A tide of menfolk swarmed in, led by Caidy’s twin brother, Alvin.

Alvin heaved the large pail of milk up onto the table. He hooked his thumbs in his belt and said importantly, “It’s so cold that we didn’t get mor’n two gallons, Ma!”

Caidy was the only girl in the family. Her two oldest brothers were also twins, Caleb and Carter. They were out of school and working full time on the farm and favored each other so that you could hardly tell them apart. Each had a shock of red hair and freckles and they were very popular at church socials. Her next oldest brother was Joshua, then Random and Arthur. They all went to school at the Raven’s Branch Schoolhouse, except for Caleb and Carter.

Her father came up to her mother and kissed her on the forehead.

“How’s my pretty May?”

Her mother’s eyes shed the exhaustion and showed a glint of their pale blue as they were in her girlhood.

“Pretty May’s just fine today. And how’s my Jason?”

Her father straightened up and gave her mother a small smile. He was a tall, massive man with weathered hands and a gentle face. The bones of the mountains were etched into the lines on his face.

“Your Jason is in a fine meddle, I reckon. Now that you’re here.”

As many times as Caidy had heard the same words they spoke to each other, it never failed to make her feel safe and loved.

She smiled to herself as she started to get the food on the table.

SusieQ has tagged me for a meme. I'm to write eight random facts about myself.

Now don't all excited about me doing Susie's meme and think you can tag me for your next meme. I am indeed sort of meme'd out. But, I was really sick all day yesterday and I'm still a bit fragile today, and other than Black's Market getting broken into over the weekend, it's a slow news day in Grassy Fork.

Here are the meme rules, which I am going to totally break.

I'm not tagging anyone. Instead, in keeping with the spirit of memes in general, I'll just post some random links of some of my favorite bloggers to spread the free link love. If you want to pick up the meme...it's your choice.

Random Facts about Rosie

1. She likes to eat Raisinettes dumped in her popcorn at the movie theater. It's the only place she does this. So if she has a really bad craving...she might actually go see a crappy movie just to have the popcorn and Raisinettes.

2. Christopher Reeve once kissed her. (Okay, it was a friendly goodbye kiss, but it absolutely was a kiss!)

3. She has a much shorter life expectancy than most people....which is why she's trying to write so much, so fast and doesn't care if it gets picked up by publishers...who has time to wait for the submissions process? Not her.

4. She has a huge crush on Anthony Bourdain. We are talking about a giggling, blushing, sighing, sick-making size crush.

5. She was married to a Brit. She has no idea what happened to him or where he is now. But she remembers him fondly.

6. She holds grudges. But she's very tolerant and forgiving, so it has to be something really egregious to pull a grudge into play.

7. She has some letters her mother wrote her before she died. She takes them out and reads them and cries.

8. She wishes people wouldn't waste so much of their precious life on being mean. Or if they must...that they'd leave her out of it. Yes...I mean you and you know who you are.


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Here's my little link cloud. I'm sorry if I left some of you out, but there are ever so many of you! Consider yourself tagged if you want to do the meme....or just sit back and soak up the link love. Maybe I'll start a trend with the no strings meme.

BusyBusyMomma, Erica, Bonnie, Mallow, Betsy, Peggy, Kazari-Lu, jbeeky, Kees, Leslie, Momma, googiebaba, Samuel, Paul, Ellamama, BlueMountainMama, Eric, Anne, Erin, Nezua,
V-Man, Manerva, Ron, ThreeCollie, Chad, Alice......

As it turns out....shearing a sheep...not so different from grooming a cocker spaniel after all.

I didn't do it like the pros do. I didn't flip him on his back or take it off in one piece. We took lots of breaks to cool the blades down and let him catch is breath, but I think he actually enjoyed it. I basically just started at his head like I would a very matted cocker and peeled him out of it like a banana.

So now I have a pile of discarded sheep's clothing. Not sure what to do with it at this point but will stuff it in a bag to keep it separate from the next pile of sheep's clothing that is to come.

And that's going to be the hard part. Mutton is my buddy. He comes up to get his butt scratched and is a general snugglepuss as far as sheep go. He's got a spot under his chin that if you scratch just right, he'll close his eyes and moan. Slutty, slutty boy.

Chops is a different matter. He's not really into the "touching" thing at all.

It's always been one of my favorite old-time music songs. I remember it playing in my grandparents house and it always brought a giggle. As a child, I wasn't much interested in the cigarette trees or the lake of gin, but the lemonade springs and the not changing your socks bit was intriguing.

I think, though, it was the little box of rock candy that my grandmother kept in her upper dresser drawer that gave the song meaning for me. It's the only sweet thing I remember her giving me. My grandfather and I were always sneaking off together to get Baby Ruth and Butterfinger bars to eat while we fed the squirrels and pigeons at Forsythe Park in Savannah. But my grandmother only kept this little sweet in her dresser and doled the little crystals out like gem stones. We would walk to Clary's Drug store and purchase them. Then they would be put carefully away in the same spot in her bedroom.

I'm not so sure why they were so special to me. It's not as though I was a stranger to sugar. Maybe it's because they came from her and were made to seem so special.

If you'd like a fun project to try with your children, you can make rock candy at home. It's an excellent lesson in crystal formation for those of you who are homeschooling. Or just for fun for those of you who aren't. Michigan History, Arts and Libraries has excellent directions HERE. It's great to add red and green coloring to use for Christmas.

And...after the kids have enjoyed their fun and gone to bed...rock candy syrup is a must have for many cocktail recipes. And if you make your own rock candy swizzles, they are great in coffee, tea or champagne cocktails.

I took this photo some time ago during a happier season for cattle. This little guy was with a bunch of other bottle raised calves in a pasture near my house. They all came running up to the fence to beg for some milk when I got out to take the picture.

The drought has taken a terrible toll on the folks raising cattle. And on the cows themselves. Driving around during this time of year, you usually see large numbers of happy, fat cattle contentedly chewing cud and enjoying a variety of summertime cow activities. They are disappearing from our landscape at an alarming rate.

Cows are pretty cool. I like cows. They aren't the brightest of your barnyard animals and they are messy, messy beasts. When I went up to help a friend decorate the graveyard this spring, the entire herd surrounded my jeep. I'd left my door open and when I came back, my car seat was covered in cow slobber. Bessie had evidently been licking the seat.

It's really sad right now. Hay is going for 35 to 50 dollars for a small round bale. UT's Vet School is about to auction its surplus hay off. It's going to be a madhouse. Some guy already went in and offered 35 dollars a bale for the entire lot. The pastures themselves aren't the usual lush green. Wilson's Livestock Market is backed up with cattle trailers every Saturday and the market has dropped out on beef. The farmers are unloading all their stock. The cows that are left are thinner than usual.

But here's a happy cow during a happier time.

Pray for rain and a good fall cutting. For the cows, people. For the cows.

I'm visiting with a friend today and she's telling this story about how her brother accidentally set her on fire with a fat stick. She was okay but it did singe her hair up pretty badly. Her mother put the fire out.

A fat stick is one of those super charged sappy pine sticks that you use to start fires with.

But out of the telling of this story comes a local cure that I had not heard before. It's for the croup or any sort of respiratory ailment that causes shortness of breath.

What you do, is you set the fat stick on fire. Then you wrap it up in a piece of "meat skin".

I'd not heard "meat skin" before, so I asked.

"Like a piece of chicken skin?"

She looked at me like I'd gone out of my mind.

Evidently, "meat skin" is a piece of pork rind...I guess a pretty big one with the fat still attached to the skin.

So, you wrap up the burning fat stick with the meat skin and put a spoon under it...I guess where the end of the burning wood/pork rind burrito is.

What comes out and is gathered in the spoon is a sort of kerosene/pork fat/pine tar elixir.

Give this to the patient and it will open the bronchial tubes.

She swears she's seen this save babies lives.

But it's not exactly kosher.

I went up to the spring tonight after putting the animals up to get a few gallons of spring water.

It's a PVC pipe sticking out of the side of the hill in front of the old abandoned Thompson Branch Baptist Church on Hall's Top Road. Scott tells me that the old fellow who was pastor here used to hold services for years to an empty church. This has only been a few years back. The mountain is already busy taking over the little lot.

It's wonderful water. It tastes like what the bottled spring waters are supposed to taste like. It's hard to describe if you've never had it, but it is sort of sweet. It comes out of the mountain ice cold on the hottest days of the year. My own water was like this before the pump fiasco and hopefully will be again once all the charred plastic taste has faded from my pipes.

This is the spring that Caidy, in my story, Bone Soup, that I'm writing would have walked by on her way to and from school. She might have stopped to have a drink or wash her face on a hot day.

I'm enjoying a tall glass of this water right now. Wish you could join me.

The two of us are piled into Betsy's little S-10 flying down the highway listening to Jethro Tull in the sizzling heat of this east Tennessee Sunday. Damn, it sure is hot. I've got my overalls on and a tank top with every inch of exposed whiteness slathered with Bullfrog sunscreen. My big straw farmer's hat has my cropped hair in a permanent state of bad hat head.

Betsy has her Cowthulhu t-shirt on. She's in love with all things Cthulhu. The dashboard of her truck is strewn with plush Cthulhus. I don't know about her...but I feel like a teenager when we sneak out on these jaunts.

We pull into the lot closest to the animals and farm vendors. Betsy is looking to see if a goat she saw at this past First Monday is there. She's been thinking about that goat a lot and regrets not bringing her home.

I'm mostly along to find more grist for my writing mill.

We check the guy's stall and the goat isn't there. But he does have a gorgeous and brazen display of home canned goods. You can get slapped pretty heavy by the USDA guys if they catch you selling this stuff. But everything was so lovely and I wouldn't have been afraid at all to take home boxes of the stuff for sale there to use on my table. And I'm a strict by the book canner.

They had canned green beans, beats, tomatoes, relishes, chow-chows and pickles. All very beautiful. Whoever put all those jars up put a lot of work into them.

We meandered around looking at guineas and turkeys until we came to the pig guy. Betsy had asked me about how to dig and prepare the pit for a pig pickin'. I gave my best idea of it since I'd only watched the procedure, which is an ancient male ritual involving much shirtlessness and cold beer.


The stoats were in the back of a small truck doing piggy stuff. We shot the breeze with the pig guy and wished we had brought a dog crate since there was a right handsome boar stoat, about at the age for cutting that looked like he'd fatten up real nice. I told the story about when I was seven and helped cut the pigs on my best friend's pig farm. I got to hold them by the back legs while her brother did the actual cutting. For those of you that don't know, you have to geld the young male pigs that you are raising for meat. They call that "cutting".

Betsy bought a gang of plushies from the lady next to the pig guy. She was looking for a goat one. The entire selection was sadly Cthulhu-less. She buys some nice pullets from the plushie woman's son.

We wandered around towards the one building that housed an army-navy store. Betsy bought some cammo shirts for her husband and replaced her army jacket that had gotten left out in the rain.

We only did about half the market since I was getting nervous about exactly how effective my sunscreen was going to be. I get a little paranoid and wonder if I missed a spot. Lupoids don't do so well in direct sunlight.

We found the real treasure trove over in the far corner of the market. I think it this circa 1950-something electric washer that drew us in that direction.

It's just like the one that a local woman told me she got in the 60's. She was so happy to get that thing. I remember thinking she was talking about an automatic one, but when I asked her about it...this beast was exactly what she described. Mangle and all. But this would have been a huge luxury after spending your days hauling water up from the creek to boil your laundry in vats of lye soap and bluing. She says that the modern washers don't actually get your clothes nearly as clean as these big machines or the boiling did. And everything would be hung out on the clothesline to dry. I think we forget that luxurious feeling of sun dried clothing. Sheets especially. Can you all remember that smell?

No, the real find of the day was a 50 gallon cast iron cauldron in really great condition. No thin spots or anything! Perfect for cooking up a big batch of applebutter, scrapple and a must have for any respectable hog killin'.

Or maybe I was just in a particularly pig murdering mood that day.

I've had barbecue on the brain recently. And home cured country ham. And crispy fried scrapple slathered in butter and sorghum. With some salt-risin' bread.

But it was a really good trip, despite the heat and glaring sun. We stopped off at a Chinese buffet to grab a bite on the way home.

I didn't buy anything, but I almost bought a pig, a bunch of guineas and a sheep. But I restrained myself.

Today Betsy, The Goat Yoda, and I took an excursion to Jonesborough to the Jonesborough Flea Market. I'll do a complete post on that...it was hotter than H-E-double hockey sticks.

I got a picture of this lovely woman snapping beans for supper. We talked about how everyone has their own way of snapping beans. If you snap them too long, they don't fit in the canning jars too good. But these were for her dinner that night so she wasn't too worried about that. I thought she was snapping them a mite too small. I like a little more length on mine.

I remember when I was a child that I really hated this chore. I'd get all fidgety and I never could get the strings out. But it is something you get better at. But as I've grown older, I sort of enjoy the chore. It's a chance to sit and do something rather than being out in the hot sun hoeing.

I hope you are having a very happy Sunday. I hope you found a spot of shade to get out of the hot sun and feel a bit of breeze. Or maybe stick a toe in a cold mountain stream. It was a good day for that.

Happy, happy Sunday. The dog days are here.