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!!!

Wild Hogs

The trusty lawn-mower / Bush-hog!


Near the picnic table the hog sign is amply evident!


Near the out-house it looks like someone is
trying to plant a garden.

Wild hogs keep tearing up the yard - Bad!
You think I may be able to shoot one?

Yesterday I mowed the grass here at the cabin. When I arrived, I found ample evidence that wild hogs have been rooting up my backyard. The problem is that water collects here and doesn't drain properly. It's near the out-house (toilet for you who don't know what an out-house is) and seems to me that when it rains and makes a temporary "bog", the odor of the wet spot attracts the pigs. I keep thinking that I'll get some time to stay here for three or four nights and in the process can get the opportunity to kill one. That meat would be mighty tasty next time we have a cold winter's morning.

Also I threw a belt on the lawn-mower, so must get it to the shop and have the belt re-installed and tightened a bit. I know. I know. You don't have to tell me I should not use the lawn-mower as a bush-hog, but ... I was trying to follow the suggestion put out by that famous cable guy, "Git 'er done!" I had lopped off some limbs that kept knocking my hat off and was trying to mulch them with the lawn-mower. Put a smiley face right here!

A New Water Tank

This is the OLD Tank.

Saturday while I was out, Kenny Key (my neighbor here in the mountains) called Frances to say that he had at last come into possession of an empty detergent tank that holds 275 gallons. I had almost given up hope of getting a new one and was considering ways to go about modifying the old tank I had and make it usable. Kenny had promised to get me one "next time they throw one away" at his work but that was last fall and still not tank. These are commercial/industrial cleaning detergent containers that the company he works for uses in maintenance. They are very sturdily made - of heavy gauge plastic, and enclosed by a frame of aluminum metal bars that are 1/2 to 3/4" square. (My old tank was encased in heavy duty wire.) When the detergent is all used up they have no further use for the tanks, so they have become popular among our community of "deer shack" owners. They are ideal water tanks, to which we attach a water hose and 12volt pump to make water available in the kitchen sink and in the bathroom.


Mom talking with Dr. Wendy, her audiologist.

So - after taking Mom to Chattanooga this morning to have her hearing aids worked on - I hooked up the little trailer and went to load the empty tank and take it to the cabin. I called three different men that I thought might help me load the tank since it is a bit on the heavy side...plus it's awkward to move it by one's self. However, since all the men were busy or out of pocket - I decided to tackle the project alone. I packed an apple, an orange, two boiled eggs, three slices of bread and off I went. After fighting off the pack of dogs Kenny has at his home, I was able to drag, lift, pull and push until I had the tank on my trailer.


This is the NEW tank - halfway across the porch. You can see the trailer attached to the truck in the background.

Heading out to the cabin, I ran into a heavy shower of rain - and just decided to go back home and wait until tomorrow. By the time I was back home, the rain had moved on out - so - with Frances' encouragement I loaded up again and headed for the cabin. This time the weather cooperated and I was able to offload the tank and drag it across the front porch and out back where WE will install it later. ☻ I dared not drive the pickup through the yard! Since I was alone I did not want to have to walk that mile to the top of the mountain to call and say I was now stuck in the mud!


This was the raincloud I was facing! Does that make you want to go home? It did me!!!

Now all I have to do is find time and energy to repair the water leaks under the house caused by my negligence during the winter. I failed to take the hose that feeds the house loose from the tank, then the PVC pipes froze and burst. It's really not that bad - but I promise you - I will drain the pipes and put anti-freeze into the toilet bowl before the next freeze.