Mid-February in southern North Carolina

Took this while driving along Secrest Shortcut Rd. in Indian Trail, NC, halfway between my house and my office.

Chickens!

Our chicks arrived today, safe and perky!  

Dogwoods, Droughts, and Draughts (pronounced drafts, silly)

It's hard to imagine, unless you've experienced it first-hand, the unmitigated anguish of watching your new lawn and treasured ornamental flowering trees wither away to dust.  But I've experienced this.  Twice.  In just two years.

It's also hard to imagine, unless you're one of my neighbors watching disdainfully from a curtained window, a weary and wild-eyed forty-something dragging a lawn sprinkler and 200 feet of garden hose from tree to tree, adjusting the angle and velocity of the sprinkler head at each new location, delicately setting the appropriate radius of spray, then stepping back--just for a moment--to savor the sight of water seeping into cracker-dry earth.  

This wouldn't be so unimaginable perhaps, except that most of the trees are not in the yard at all, but in the woods.  For several weeks now, I've been watering the woods.

Am I insane? 

Yes.  Certifiably so.  

But I like our white flowering dogwood trees.  And I hate droughts.  And for the second summer in three years drought conditions have plagued our homesite, claiming more than one cherished dogwood.  

When we moved into the house in May of 2007, the previous owner, who had been here about 5 years, said the little creek that runs along the lot had never dried up, not even in summer. Well, that first summer it dried up completely, and this summer (cursed thing), only a few small puddles remain.  

All this because we've had only 4 inches of rain since June.  Three hot summer months and only one lousy rain shower.  (You might think that 4 inches is a lot, but just try growing some 'maters in 90+ degree temperatures with only a single application of water).

The strangest part is that Charlotte and the surrounding region is not under any kind of drought restriction.  Why?  Because it's been raining EVERYWHERE but at our house.  I'm not kidding.  I watch satellite imagery incessantly, searching for any small inkblot that woul

d give the impression of impending rain.  Oh, the dark clouds come.  They well up and thunder all around us, dropping inches of rain at a time to the north in Charlotte, unloading tons of water to the south in Monroe and east in Waxhaw.  But NEVER in Matthews.  At least not at our house.  I swear, we must be surrounded by some kind of invisible hoodoo water-repellant force field. There can be no other explanation for why rain falls north, south, east, and west of us, but NEVER at our house.

So I water.  And I water.  And I water.  You do what you have to when you're desperate for a draught of water in a drought-stricken landscape.  This is a photo of our dried up creek. Pathetic.

Tonight's forecast?  80% chance of rain.  Think we'll get any? I've got a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot.  Twice. In two years.

ADDENDUM, 9:30 PM

See, I wasn't kidding!  Below is an actual screen capture of tonight's rain event that had an 80% chance of hitting us.  Notice the hole in the image RIGHT OVER MATTHEWS!  This happens EVERY TIME!

Stump Grinding

Episode 1 - Friday

I reserved a medium size stump grinder from Sun Belt Rental and towed it home this afternoon after leaving work.  Before ever driving off the rental yard I could see that the cutting edges of the teeth were severely rounded over and in very bad shape.  I ignored it because obviously people had been using this stump grinder, so how bad could it be?

Very bad.  At home, I gave it a go on the nearest stump and the teeth not so much chewed out smooth chunks as it should, but bounced along the stump shredding it as it went.  I could see right away this was not going to work.  But no matter.  Just at that moment the engine coughed and spit and spewed out an enormous blue cloud of smoke that made me jump back before I mustered courage to return and cut off the engine.  

I had used the machine for a total of two minutes.  

After dinner we loaded it back onto the trailer, and at dawn tomorrow (literally, at 7 AM) I will be at the rental store to return this beast.  

This evening we went to The Home Depot and noticed they had the same model stump grinder, but with better teeth, and one-fourth the running hours, for about $70 less per day.  I think that store will be my second stop in the morning.  

Episode 2 - Saturday

Make that $101 less per day.  I returned the stump grinder to Sun Belt without incident, got a full refund of $311 and rented the same machine, only newer, from The Home Depot, for $210. While Sun Belt offers Sunday free, the rental was for only 8 hours running time, tracked by a built-in timer dial in the casing of the stump grinder, but Depot didn't care how long I ran the machine, as long as I returned it in 24 hours.  Or pay $32 for each additional hour.  Sun Belt charges $24.  So, renting from Depot turned out to be a huge savings.  Besides, the engine is as loud as a locomotive so I really didn't want to run it on Sunday.  

I didn't finish grinding all the stumps even though I worked for over 9 hours.  The machine cuts very slowly and a 12-inch stump takes more than half an hour to shred.  I think if the cutting teeth were new and sharp, it would take considerably less time.  But you can't make the rental place put on new teeth for you. Undoubtedly they don't care about that.  

Episode 3 - In pre-production

Looking around the yard it seems like I finished off about one-third of the stumps, so I'm taking a vacation day Thursday to go at it again.  Hopefully I'm underestimating and can get most of the stumps done in one day because Friday I plan to have two large loads of topsoil delivered and rent a skid steer to move it with. 

Thirty cubic yards of earth should occupy me for quite some time.  Stop by with your shovel. Or your Tonka Truck. 

Boys will be boys, Jeff will be MEAN!

A couple weeks ago I was looking out back and saw several boys playing in and around the detention pond on the church property that adjoins our lot.  They were using air soft guns and seemed to be having a pretty good time.  When they finished their game, they walked along the back of the church property through the woods, into someone else's woods, and finally, down through my neighbor's yard, where lots of other kids cut between subdivisions. 

The next day, the boys came to play again.  They arrived the same way, and left in the same manner.  No problem.  Not my woods, and they're not doing any harm.

But I could guess what was eventually going to happen, and you can too.   

The air soft gun battle soon spilled over onto our lot.  Not very far into our lot, just a few yards, and it wasn't a big deal.  The back end of our lot is woodsy: a few scattered trees, no grass, and a six foot high brush pile with a ramp to the top made from wood chips that I delivered by wheelbarrow over several months last year.  

It didn't take long for those boys to discover the joys and triumphs of playing king of the brush pile.  Once they discovered it, it immediately became the center of every game.

And you can probably guess what happened next.

No, they didn't light it on fire, although I wouldn't mind much if they had.

They got real comfortable in our yard.  And bored with the long way home so they started using the driveway and walking past the garage and screen porch to get to the battleground.  

Next thing, boys and guns are flowing down toward the house, where the boys discover the creek and our bridge over the creek, and the other bridge over the creek that goes right to the deck and along the house.  And they couldn't have been more carefree if they'd been romping around Disneyland.

At this point I felt it was time to have a chat.  I told them that it would have been nice if they'd knocked on the door and asked if they could play in the woods and cut up our driveway and through the yard (not to mention walking everywhere else).  One guy was apologetic and courteous, but the others didn't have much to say. The courteous kid showed me how his gun worked, and when I asked, he let me take a couple shots.  I told them to be careful, to use the driveway, and to stay WAY OUT BACK.

They didn't.  Every day they'd end up hanging out near the house, playing in the creek, climbing up this leaning tree, and loitering on the far bridge.  

What's more, the other day, two of them terrorized a squirrel along the driveway with their little plastic pellets.  The squirrel was at the base of a small tree and the boys fired at it until it climbed as high as it could go, which was only about 30 feet.  So, it leapt to the ground to escape.  Thirty feet!  I was a hundred feet away in the house and could hear the squirrel thump on the ground as it landed.  It seemed to be okay and got away, and I realize it's just a squirrel, and that these are boys, but come on.  Terrorize wildlife at your own house.  

Well today I'd had enough.  They were getting loud and obnoxious, playing in the creek and all over the bridge.  I wanted them to have fun, but I also wanted them to be considerate of our privacy, and our property.

So what pushed my red button today was when one kid took a 2-inch tree next to the bridge, a tree I specifically left in that place for aesthetics (not that he would have know this), bent it over, and positioned himself to stand on it.  His intention clearly was to break it off.  I worked many many months clearing the lot and deciding--very methodically--which trees to keep and which to cut.  

So I threw open a window and yelled, "GET OFF THAT TREE, BOY!"  And then, "WHY DON'T YOU GUYS CLEAR OUT OF HERE FOR A WHILE.  YOU'RE GETTING A LITTLE TOO COMFORTABLE AROUND HERE!"

I felt kind of bad afterwards, but I was red hot.  That destructive brat had no regard for our property, even if it was a just little tree in the "woods."  

And what's more, these boys were over here three different times Saturday--several hours the third time and right up until dark.  And then again Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon until after dinner time.  It was getting out of hand.  I didn't think they would come around so often when I gave them the OK to use the back of the yard.  

I have a feeling they won't be back for a while.  

Addition Foundation

After more than a year of planning and too many delays to remember or count we finally have a foundation for our addition. Our master mason, Chad Morrison, showed up this morning, Saturday, with his brother and two helpers and built all the piers and the entire curtain wall in about 5 hours. And the finished product is certifiable modern majestic masonry art! Chad has a few minor things to finish up tomorrow (yes he’s working on Sunday, bless his heathen heart), but the work is complete for all intents and purposes (um, that would be to hold up the actual addition).

Tuesday our HVAC (heating, ventilation, and cooling) contractor is scheduled to install the new air conditioning condenser, and after that the electrician will wire it up, and then Peidmont Natural Gas will come (hopefully) Friday to move the gas meter (which now is within the walls of the new addition) to the outside of the addition.

Dudes, we’re like, reeeeeeeeeeealy excited about all this. Things are finally happening. It’s very possible in fact, that the addition could be framed and dried-in (windows, sheathing, and roofing installed) within two weeks.

So, like, text us if you want to party down and celebrate this most momentous occasion with us.

Bring your skateboard, dudes (and dudettes).

Near Death Experience!

Saturday Audry and I were moving rotted wood from the woods into the truck when I was stung on the right shoulder by what we think was a yellow jacket. The sting was just a slight pricking sensation for the first second or two, but quickly grew to be more painful and sting-like, so we went inside after about a minute to apply ice. But within 5 minutes—and over the span of only another 5 minutes—my arms, legs and feet were itching uncontrollably and breaking into serious hives. I was turning red all over.

Meantime Audry called a phone number to reach a triage center associated with my (lousy) health insurance to find out what was best to do for this sort of thing. I had never reacted this way from a bee sting before, and although I was seriously allergic to several bees when I was a kid, I’d been stung a couple times since and not had any more of reaction than a lump at the sting site followed by soreness and itching for a few days after.

But I was DEFINITELY having a reaction to this sting. So Audry hustled me to Matthews Urgent Care and, although there were a few patients ahead of us—including a small boy writhing on the floor and foaming from the mouth and nose—they took me in ahead of him. His problem could wait.

After the prerequisite medical questions: are you allergic to or taking any medications, no; any medical conditions, no; have you had any surgeries, no; do you want these three injections we’re about to stab you with, no; they stabbed me with the three injections anyway.

In the end I was glad for them. One shot of Epinephrine (EpiPen) to stop the reaction, one of Benadryl to continue stopping the reaction, and one steroid to—well—I don’t really know (but I have a prescription for that one). But they worked, and quickly. The itching stopped almost immediately, and the swelling and red skin faded almost entirely by the time we left the office about 45 minutes later.

But I'm used to injections. When I was around twelve I was tested positive for several bee venoms and began getting bi-weekly allergy shots. I had to carry an EpiPen (self-injected hypodermic needle) with me EVERYWHERE to use in case I reacted to a bee sting. Happily, I escaped even a single sting for 20 years, evading the horrifying necessity to jab myself like a desperate junkie.

So now, after being needle-free for decades, I have to carry a new EpiPen everywhere I go.

Life could be worse.