Old houses out in the hills

While going through some files today, I happened upon these photos I am including. They show a two old houses, which, if they were currently occupied, would be some of our closest neighbors at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm.

As you can see from the photos, the first house is in bad condition and may not stand many more years. I can hardly believe that I remember the people who lived here. One of the girls who grew up in this house was a contemporary of my brothers and me. The family farmed the upper end of this creek bottom. Some years later, after I left for college to make my own way in the big world, the family dispersed leaving the house abandoned.

Over the years hunters and others have gone into the house and ransacked it. But even now there is strong evidence of the family that once lived there. The oddest thing is that it appears that the family just walked out of the house and took almost nothing with them. Clothes are still on hooks. The battered furniture in still in the house. There is perhaps more to that story.

Now, at my age I have a memory of other such house places not far from here. Most were not occupied when I was a child but they were then standing, along with a few outbuildings and hand-dug wells. Cabins (not houses as we think of them) were scattered along dirt roads and deep in the woods where the tracks leading to them are no longer even faint. You have to know where the remains of these places are located to find them. Some are now gone to rot with only a few foundation stones remaining to mark their location.

I have always been intrigued by these old house places. They each have a story. I know only a few of those stories. The last photo showing the old house that now has collapsed into the ground was called the Algerine Place. In that log cabin a son accidentally shot and killed his mother. He was preparing to shoot a hawk that was perhaps threatening their chickens. The shotgun somehow discharged in the house, killing his mother instantly.

Nearby is a house (not shown) where a wayward daughter killed several of her family members by poisoning the water pail. And, there are more such places where families once somehow scratched out an existence. Many are now only traces in the ground.

Well, I like these old pictures. I like to look at them even though they make me feel old. And somewhere among boxes of old photos that were taken on some medium they long ago called "film", I may even have photos of some of these old places when they were younger and in a better state of repair.

From the Hills, The Old Hired Man

Kids and the creek

Recent experience at Rock Eddy Bluff shows that there are two options for handling grandkids who claim to be bored: (1) Set them in front of a TV with an antimated movie, or (2) take them to the creek or river. Get them wet!

We prefer option two for a variety of reasons. The kids actually get excercise, they connect with nature, and when we bring them home they are tired and ready to rest. Splashing around in the water seems to have a wearying effect on kids. Can I get a halleluya?

The photo shows our grandkids: Declan, Lily, and David.

Chances are you will have to deal with assorted fauna that the children love to collect. Crawdads are a favorite, along with tadpoles and minnows. Here is where we need to be sneaky. Of course kids want to bring home the critters. They have named them and are envisioning a long relationship extending into their teen years. Older folks, if they plan well are able to somehow allow a merciful escape back into the wild before the party returns.

We have two wonderful places for kid splashing here: The excellent gravel bar at Rock Eddy below the bluff, and Clifty Creek, about a mile down the road. At either location the Hired Man and Missus plan ahead and take folking chairs. We are comfy while kids splash. An excellent refinement for hot days is to move the chairs into the water where you can recline partially submerged. On certain occassions it has been known that there was beer involved.

I am quite certain that kids will remember their river and creek time long after the images of the animated characters in movies have faded. Who could forget the first encounter with a Jesus bug? (They walk on water). And how about tadpoles changing into frogs, legs sprouting from their sides. Snake are alway facinating, and when encountered, are an excellent opportunitiy for teaching.

Then there are rocks! Many a throwing arm has seen early developement at the creek. With no shortage of rocks of all sizes, the act of heaving them into the creek may proceed for hours. At a certain stage of youthful maturation the refinement of skipping rocks can be added.

We have had quite a bit of kid time in the water this summer. We hope for more.

The Hired Man

Cadet Baloney arrives at the Bluff

It was 1964, I was fresh out of college and loaded for bear. President Kennedy had convinced me to sign up with the Peace Corps. I was accepted and headed for a two-year stint in Colombia .

Problem was, Kennedy (before he was killed), had warmed up a little war in far off Viet Nam that now looked like it would only get bigger. "Rats," I thought.

At my local Selective Service Office (the draft board) I was assured that I would be drafted into the Army the moment my commitment with the Peace Corps ended. That would extend my service to the country by at least two years. And I thought, "How could they take someone with my sensibilities into the infantry (known as 'Grunts')?"

So, I joined the Navy Flight program and was whisked off to Pensacola, Florida. Along with several other guys, I was slammed into a program called "Preflight". The Idea was to convert college kids, over a period of months, into Officers ready to become Naval Aviators. It was intense. It was memorable.

I am remembering all of this because my old roomie in Preflight, Denny Bolena (Cadet Boloney) has just visited us on the bluff. Hey, in case you are not counting, we last saw each other a mere 45 years ago. Denny was a kid from Queens, out of ethnic Albanian extraction. I was a kid from the Missouri hills. We hit it off wonderfully.

So, it was a blast to see him and his wife, Jan, when they drove in a couple of days ago. We caught up with each other. We discussed Navy friends and their adventures. We commented how we could still see some of those fresh-faced kids in the images of the older gentlemen we have become.

We remembered the time during a RLP (room, locker and personnel inspection) when he gave the one-finger salute to the Marine Drill Sargent while standing behing him. My eyes fickered and then I broke. So, I was the one with a substancial number of demerits added to my total.

There were many nearly forgotten recollections. Our memories complimented each other, so that in the end we both relived much of the decades-old experience.

Thanks Denny for coming. Here are some photos of us as we now appear. And just for practice, Cadet Bolena, I would like you to put yourself on report for flipping that bird.

Cadet Corey

Things turned old fashion this morning

We lost one hundred years in an instant this morning. Yes, we had another bit of bad weather and it changed things instantly.

It all started with another of our signature toad stranglers. That is one hell of a hard rain, for those who ain’t from the hills. That storm caused an unexplained loss of power. (We don’t know where the problem is but this happens with some frequency here.) So all morning things were dark and wet, and the rain came in buckets full.

Right now I have the generator running. We need that to provide power for our well pump so that we can get water. Otherwise we are pretty well prepared for power losses, but we can’t do without water for very long. So, while I have the generator on I flipped on another circuit and I have line power to this computer. We are sitting pretty except that there is another problem.

We are surrounded here by creeks with low water crossings and simple concrete fords. When the creeks are up we are stranded, and that is our condition this morning. We can stand a pretty fair rain before our final avenue of escape becomes closed to us. That is the low water bridge on highway E about two miles from the house. Here is a picture taken this morning.

Things have changed here in the country. We used to have hard rains but there was nothing like the frequency that now exists. These rains come so hard that they wash out roads, spill over ditches and play havoc with things in general.
What is the reason for the change in the weather. Perhaps it is a shift in weather patterns in general. I hesitate to mention global warming because that brings the ire of locals who hold that the whole thing is just another liberal plot to take over more of the world.

The theory held by weather scientists is that along with warmer average global temperatures events in local regions will become more erratic. They say that almost any weather event will be more dramatic. Erratic, emphatic and dramatic. Apparently there is good evidence for that since the vast majority of scientists hold this view.

You all have a good day, and think of us hillbillies living like we did before we got electric down here in the woods.

The Hired Man and Missus stuck at home in the dark.

Garden Food

Yesterday Kathy canned some food from the garden and I figured that this photo of a few jars of canned beets would make folks jealous. Well maybe! She has given away one jar to a guest who fancied it. I told her that I thought I fancied it more than they did, but that did not save it.

We have gotten back into canning this year and hope to have enough garden veggies to supply some of our winter needs. We have even taken a friend's advice and canned pinto beans. For that we simply put dry beans in the jar along with some ham or bacon and some salt. Fill the jar nearly full with water and process it in the canner. You can then have a ham and bean dinner at a moment's notice. Just open the jar and heat.

We have been overrun with strawberries this year and Kathy has made some wonderful freezer jam. Wish I had a picture.

The garden has been quite productive despite the wet spring. A chief factor, we think, is that most of it is planted in raised beds, which drain well. You can see what we have done with spare watering troughs. They make great raised beds. We are even considering converting an old leaky aluminum boat to a raised bed in our garden.

It just keeps raining here. The poor guests want to get out on the river but it seems to rain every afternoon and night. We had a toad strangler again last night and it washed out our road in several places. So fixing the road is back on the hired man's list of things to do.

From the Hills, The Hired Man & Missus

Guns and Whiskey

Remember the old wild west cowboy movies and how the saloons made folks check their guns at the door. Maybe it was in old Dodge City where the proprietors felt the need to do this. Perhaps it was just common sense. Maybe they found that cleaning up the place after a wild Saturday night just went smoother when the cowboys hadn't had access to their sidearms.

Probably there was a body of evidence showing that whiskey and guns don't mix, or when they do, the results are rather messy. Hey, I've been in enough redneck roadhouses myself to entertain that same notion.

Turns out that those saloons back in Dodge during the wild west were probably run by a bunch of limp-wristed liberals. The legislature of the State of Tennessee has corrected that idea.

Acording to the news, the Tennessee legislature passed a law allowing guns to be carried in drinking establishments. So, whem the bill comes to the governor he vetos it, saying that people get silly when they drink and perhaps silly people should not be armed in bars. That idea so upset the legislature that they overrode the veto with more votes than the original bill received.

A Tennessee political spokesmen of some persuasion made a statement afterward. This isn't an exact quote but catches the meaning: "Things will be a lot safer when everyone who is not a convicted felon inside the bar is packing heat somewhere on his person."

Now I don't want to pass judgment on this situation or differ with the collective wisdom of the Tennessee legislature. But I do plan to remain cold sober when in Tennessee. And I think I will steer clear of bars, roadhouses, and whiskey palaces.

Its probably because I am not as fast on the draw as I used to be.


The Hired Man

The Hired Man Says: Farm Friends

The Hired Man Says: Farm Friends

Farm Friends

They are the last of only a few, the tail end of a generation of country folk from hereabouts. They are the keepers of some important things that will soon be lost. In them resides old ideas about hay fields, about where to look for goldenseal near the spring branch, about how to think about things on the porch in the evening when you are tired. So many things.

These are our friends, the last two of a family. They never left home. They never married. They know everything about the farm that they have never left; about a clapboard farm house they have returned to from the fields for all of their lives. There they cared for beloved parents until time took them. Then there were three siblings, two brothers and a sister.

Now there are only two. They are now in their eighties and time is gnawing on them. The years are reducing them, pulling away competences and possibilities with increasing swiftness. They seem to accept this. They have seen it before.

They have animals still: cattle, chickens, guineas, dogs, cats. And they have lambs, and it is well known that grandchildren need to see lambs. So off we went on a Sunday afternoon, kids, parents, and grandparents, to see the pretty lambs and see the farm and visit with our friends.

Oh, the kids had a great time, and our friends got to be near some children, something that has become less frequent for them. And it was a sunny day and we all got along wonderfully and spoke repeatedly about how we don’t see each other often enough and how we are going to start doing thing differently. And the billy goat climbed up high and inspected the children and the lambs scurried about in the barn lot. And there were eggs gathered from the chicken house.

And then we left. We drove down the lane, across the ford of the small creek bed below the farmhouse. And off we went back into a reality that was more contemporary. I think they enjoyed our visit. I know we did. And, looking back on that day at their farm, the thought strikes me that it will not be long until we could be the end of a generation of folks from hereabouts. And how will people think about us.

From the hills, The Hired Man & Missus