Fall Colors

A colorful shot across a field. I love the one hour drive that I make to the cabin. About thirty minutes of the time I'm in the Cherokee National Forest.


Red is visible alongside the road. Gold, green, yellow also abound.


The last three miles of my ride is on gravel road. This colorful limb hangs over-head.


The view leaving the cabin.



The creek at the cabin is moving ever so slowly.


This is the only tree at the cabin showing any color yet. Maybe there is so little color right at the cabin because the building is down in a low place between two mountains?

Why am I here? Because we have a friend who loves to do things for "Mama Frankie". Kathy came Monday to paint the den, kitchen and hallway of our house. I find that the best thing I can do to relieve stress for them and for me is for me to disappear...so out to the cabin and stayed until about 3:30p when a meat truck passed through the mountains selling meat. I bought $1,400 worth of meat for only $706, including tax. I stuffed as much of the meat into my cabin freezer as the little thing would hold, then was forced to take the remaining meat home. I barely managed to get it all stuffed into the freezer. I won't have to buy meat for at least four months.

O.K. -- so the painting was still going on -- which meant that yesterday morning (Tuesday) I also got up and hurried out the door to escape to the mountains!

Visitors

I have always loved company. It doesn't matter who they are, when they come, or what the circumstances. We had a saying at our house growing up that if we didn't have a bed we would "drive a nail in the wall to hang company on", meaning that we would make room for them to stay awhile. I can remember many times us three boys giving up our bed and sleeping on a quilt thrown on the floor to make room for guests. But it was always fun! Part of the fun was the good eats - cause Mama always cooked her best for visitors. Part of the joy was that sometimes the visitors had kids my age. Some were kinfolks - but not all. It didn't matter, we just enjoyed visiting with the folks.

And especially do I love company when it's someone I haven't seen in a long while - like this visit Sunday night and yesterday by my 1st cousin, Terry Junius Jones and his lovely wife Trish, who now reside in Alabama. In town, I was awakened from my afternoon nap by their knock on the kitchen door (all strange visitors come to the front door). After a good visit at the house in town on Sunday night - we laid out our plans for Monday by calling my Mom and starting the day at her apartment for breakfast of mullet roe with grits! Junius' career has been commercial fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico. He brought these fresh frozen fish roe up to Mom because he knows how much she enjoys them. And we made her day by visiting with her and allowing her to cook for us. She still loves visitors too.

Then we headed out to the cabin where I cooked deer steaks, baked potatoes, and had cake, cinnamon rolls and muscadines for dessert!


Of course I made a fresh pot of coffee which I poured into a thermos bottle to keep it warm.


Canned biscuits to go with our deer steak - unfortunately I left them in the oven just a minute too long but the visitors bragged on them anyway.


These venison steaks cooked up to perfection! They went down well with the baked Idaho potatoes.


These delicious cinnamon rolls were just part of dessert. A berry cake, made by daughter Ruthie - and muscadines - and scuppernongs topped it off.



Delightful Trish was offering to help clean up the dishes but I insisted that it was my job today.


Took them outside to the fire pit where we had a camp-fire going. We needed the fire as the weather was a cool 41 degrees this morning - and only up to 55 for a high.


Sitting here and re-hashing stories from our past times with Grandpa and Grandma Jones consumed a good portion of our day. We also took the vacuum cleaner apart and put it back together so I could vacuum the floor inside. The gas heater was not working properly so Junius helped me take it out of the fireplace box and into the truck to take to town for repairs. And finally, just as I was finished with the dishes - can you believe it? - the water-pump stopped working. Our last item of work was to remove it and place it in the truck to take to town for replacement. Yes, we had our inconveniences - But we had a GREAT time with our visitors!!!

Visitin'

This morning I got up with one of my sick friends on my mind who is in St. Mary's Hospital in Knoxville. He had a need for gastric by-pass surgery. Twice I had been to the hospital to see him in the last three weeks and he was not aware of my presence...but after talking to his dad last Sunday and learning he was now getting up out of bed and able to talk, I decided I would go see him again. On the way I met a mutual friend and together we went to visit and pray with Gary. We had a good visit.

Afterwards, I decided that I would go to the cabin and spend the night. Since this was on Wednesday, I decided to visit the little Baptist church pictured below - which is three miles from my cabin.


This is an old fashioned country church. The people are friendly and welcome all visitors. It was Prayer-Meeting night, so I knew they would be having church. I have now attended the place enough times that they will call on me to sing or testify or combination thereof.


See the two benches on the front of the church? That's where two or three of the men were sitting when I arrived. As I expected, the stood up and welcomed me. More deacons, arrived, the Pastor arrived. I learned that they were in Revival services. As we sat there and talked - all the deacons and the Pastor and the Evangelist took out their cigarettes and smoked. As a child I had been taught that smoking was a sin. I chuckled to myself about that when the Pastor said, "It's time to pray." Cigarettes extinguished, they invited me to join with them under the shed out front for prayer over the time of worship and preaching just ahead.


Under this shed there were 16 elders and deacons taking prayer requests and lifting them up to God in concert prayer. This is very normal in our area for our "holiness" churches but a little unusual for Baptist churches to have these "concert" prayers. Some things in the Baptist church are very different from the way we do things in our church, the Church of God. One of those things is that generally we preach against smoking, drinking, cursing, etc., and etc. while it has been reported to me that the Baptists do not. They even allow drinking (in moderation) among most members.


The preacher was a bit old fashioned in his approach and laid his coat down on the front seat. After he had read his text and prayed, he walked the aisle (as you can see in the picture above) while waxing warm in the old fashioned way of preaching. Wish you all could have heard him. I was surprised to hear the evangelist preaching against long hair on men. I loved it. There were "Amen's" coming from every corner.


I spent a very quiet, very pleasant night at the cabin and rose "a great while before day". I got the picture above as the sun sought me out on the back porch where I was reading my Bible and drinking my coffee. The smell of sausage and canned biscuits mixed with coffee had really permeated the air around the cabin and I could hear birds and see a squirrel playing in the trees. After cleaning some boards off the front porch I swept both porches and enjoyed the great weather! It was 62 degrees at 6:00a.m. and didn't start getting warm until almost 12:00.


After cleaning up the dishes I locked the cabin and went for some walk/ride/picture-taking moments. Above is Possum Grapes. The woods are full of them here this year.


When I saw what appeared to be beautiful fruit from the road, I had to get closer. I thought it might be a fig tree - or even some yellow apples. I stopped the truck and walked over to the tree only to discover that it was not fruit at all - but was what I was taught to call "buckeyes".


If you peel off the exterior hull, this is what you find. If you see "buckeyes" out of the shell and you don't know better, they look just like chestnuts. I need to find and take pictures of a chestnut tree so that you can see the chestnut is covered with sharp prickly outside covering whereas the "buckeye" has a smooth outer hull.


Just as I pulled up to a quiet place and took out my gun, I looked down and saw that someone had been here before me. I do not like to see litter on the forest floor. It's so easy to put that trash in your pocket and carry it home to the trash bag. Don't let me get started on that subject or this blog will not hold all of my words. ☻



Just a few steps further and I saw something I was looking for! See that huge acorn? The squirrels love them! I'll be back soon. Hopefully with squirrel meat for the freezer!!!

A Lazy Hazy Day of Summer

On my way to the cabin today I was reminded of why these mountains are called "The Smokies". Many mornings, especially in the fall when the temperatures begin to cool down some, the fog makes the hills look as if they are covered in smoke. To me they are beautiful this morning and I know that soon the sun will rise and burn off the clouds to reveal a beautiful day.


Looking to the West, I take in the beauty of the Hiwassee River.



Shortly after arrival at the cabin today I made a pot of coffee, grabbed the peanut butter and jelly, a bottle of cold water from the fridge, and my Bible before stretching out in the new swing! What a wonderful day for relaxing... that is ...until it started to get so hot!


But today I had a solution to the heat! I put together the pedestal fan I had purchased at Big Lot's last week and plugged it into the power source (Five batteries in series with a 2000 watt inverter) and there was instant relief! I'm excited about this because I did not know if the fan would drain the batteries too quickly. To my utter delight the green light, indicating how much power I had remaining, stayed lit the entire six hours that I was there! This will be a pleasant surprise for Frances next time she comes with me to the place.


Here's a view from the other side of the fan!


While I was reading, I looked over into the truck and this beautiful butterfly was spreading his wings in a great display of natural beauty.


TODAY - As I had not taken the lawn mower, nor tried to repair anything, nor attemped to do any kind of work - I decided to drive down a different road instead of passing it by as usual. Oh - am I glad I did! I FOUND A PERSIMMON tree! Persimmons are a real treat for deer and other wild game. I'll be back to this tree in about six more weeks when the fruit begins to ripen! I've looked everywhere for one of these trees - and FINALLY!

Know-How

Above: Two good friends who have some know-how! On your left is Gordon Bloodworth, veteran missionary and President of Discipleship College in Eldoret, Kenya, East Africa. On your right is Jack Darnell, retired military man and retired building contractor.

Did you ever wish for "know-how"? I certainly have. One of the reason's why I tear things up (or perhaps render them useless) is because I tackle projects when I don't have the "know-how". On occasion I manage to tackle and complete one of those projects that I don't know how to do - but I spend far too much money and far too much time in the process. Such was the plumbing project I had to do here at Pumzika Acres lately. I had even hired a professional handy-man and crew who did a tremendous amount of work - but had to leave for other commitments before finishing the task. Frankly, I was dreading the completion of the task. However - God sent someone by to help me! It was going to be a difficult task because of limited crawl space. I loathed the idea of having to crawl around under the house, cutting and re-attaching pipe because I had failed to winterize in time and the pipes froze and burst. From the amount of water - discovered on New Year's day - I just knew I had at least six leaks to find. So procrastination had become my method of dealing with it all. Thank God, it is now in operation! I promise you that I WILL winterize before the first freeze this winter!!!




Jack Darnell, explaining to me how "simple" it will be to attach these pipes and "fix" everything!

Spider, Ferns, Birds & Neighbors

The birds have now hatched and flown!

Are there two hungry mouths here?

I went to the cabin on Satruday, July 3, with the intentions of doing nothing but relaxing. Spent most of the six hours I stayed there just reading and/or sleeping. Mixed nuts, peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich with creek-water from my newly purchased Sawyer filter was sufficient nourishment.

Frances had said it might not be the best time to go if I wanted solitude because this was the 4th of July week-end. Some of the neighbors have been known to drink a bit and play loud music - but I decided to go anyway. I was surprised that none of my camp neighbors were there when I arrived. Everything was totally quiet except for the song-birds and a crow now and then. Late in the afternoon one of the neighbors, Eddie the mountain man, came by and told me that Mike, my neighbor across the road, had taken a fall on a construction site, had a concussion and had been in the hospital on life support. Last report he was going to be taken off life support and would recover. Another neighbor, Rick, from a half mile away came by on his 4-wheeler and stopped for a nice chat also.

When I finally got bored I picked up a rag and started to wipe down the lavatory and tub/shower where we had been working on installation of the same, and came across this interesting spider. I do not know for sure what kind he is - but I do know that I don't want him in the shower with me! Don't worry - that one is dead now. Of course I will keep looking to see if he might have had any brothers or sisters.


A Brown Recluse? That board is six inches wide


Found him in the bathtub in the grime which has collected from all the drilling we had done.

In the tub he lookd very big!



I don't recognize this plant. Gotta try and find it in my book. It's just across the creek among the tall grass and weeds

There are hundreds of ferns all around the place.


Ferns are thick here, covering about a 1/2 acre.

We need rain here! No rain in the forecast until Saturday - and then isolated thunderstorms.

Memorial Day - 2010

Ruthie, our second-born daughter, (left) called on Sunday and wanted to know if she and her family could go to the cabin for a Memorial Day outing! I'm always glad when the kids enjoy the place and welcomed her to be there - although I had plans to be there working on water leaks and finalizing plumbing installation. As it turned out the plumber called and said that "since it's predicted to rain" he would like to wait until we have a dry day to complete our work because the ground under the house gets wet when it rains. Of course I could do nothing but agree.



It was just the right kind of day for an outing to the cabin. Well, it might have been even more fun if there had not been as much rain, but we had both cabin porches when the rain fell. :D I went up early and opened the doors and windows, lit some candles, did some minor straightening up of things and sat down to wait for the children. We had two or three rain showers but nothing that kept us from doing what we wanted to do.



Son-in-law Curtis Crocket set up a grill on the back porch to burn the dogs and burgers. Ruthie brought lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, mustard, pickles, relish, cole-slaw, chips and dips and drinks. Her two daughters (Lydia, aged 25, and Chloe, aged 5) were there. Lydia's two year old son (Julian, aged 2) was there. Frankie's daughter, Kimberly (aged 27) was there with her daughter, Hailey (aged 3). Kimberly brought two of her friends, Josh and Shay.



It was thrilling to watch the children's reaction when I started throwing pieces of a bun into a stump hole in the creek and they could see the small fish churn the water to eat. Then someone started teaching Julian how to skip rocks on the water. There are plenty of flat rocks available. Hailey and Chloe led the charge in wading the creek. Lydia was right there in the middle of it because she got soaked. Chloe climbed up the roots of the tree right in front of the cabin porch! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Roscoe (Curtis' dog) also had a blast chasing the rocks the children were throwing. Curtis says the dog has broke a tooth catching rocks that way!!!



I was also able to show Chloe what a dragon-fly is. They look very menacing with all four wings and long body which looks somewhat like a stinger - but they are totally harmless. In fact they eat mosquitos.

Grandmother Frances had sent a coloring book, a toy car and a "ring toss" game for the little ones just in case it rained. She didn't want them to be bored. Needles to say, none of the man-made toys were used.

Thank you Ruthie and Curtis for all the hard work you did to make everyone's stay at the cabin pleasant. I believe all had a grand time - including ME! Thank you too, Ruthie, for helping with the clean-up. You are such a sweetie!!!