A Real Southern Crop

For those of us of Northern extraction, this is an unusual sight.  Just as cotton fields are foreign to us, so to are tobacco harvests.  As a former smoker, I never really considered where the tobacco came from, who was involved or how it was processed.

I was told by one farmer, who raises tobacco, that the cost of planting and maintaining a tobacco crop is astronomical and a huge gamble on profit.  Because of this, most farmers do not plant it as a primary crop but as a supplementary source of income.  These photos represent this Septembers harvest.  Once cut the tobacco leaves are hung to dry then sold at various tobacco markets for further processing.  Next summer I'll visit this subject again with photos of the earlier stages of planting and growth thru harvest.  Cathy and I were driving around Byrdstown when we came across these tobacco barns and drying racks.  It wasn't long ago, early August I believe, when we were driving through Kentucky and was watching a farmer harvest cotton with a huge cotton picker (not sure what they call them today).  This thing was cutting at least 20-30 rows of cotton at one time.  I'm gonna see if I can find another farmer that works cotton and try to get some pics of that as well. 

Morning mist

Headed out this morning to do some work on the other side of the county, about 25 miles away and happened to look back as I was headed up the mountain.  Thought it was a nice soft picture.

 

Didn't stop to think that I'd be driving thru that stuff on my way east but boy did I.  It gets so thick at times that you can't see the edge of the road and, in these mountains where we don't have many guard rails, you have to really be careful.  It could be a long way down, as you can see from this next picture. 

 



 

 

Yup - that ain't no illyusion - that thar be a Tennessee hill.  Actually this is state rte 127 going north from Jamestown toward Kentucky.  If you look kinda close you'll notice the road curves to the left but then it goes into an "S" curve and you're still going down hill at the same angle.  Some of the log and rock haulers have an exciting time going down this thing.  Two days ago they had this roadway blocked and were rerouting traffic.  I assume someone overshot one of those curves and wound up going over the mountain.  We'll be reading about it in the newspaper if they did.  Hope no one was hurt.    Later 

Killing time with a walkabout

After a hard nights torrential rainfall, I figured today would be good for walking the logging road below the house looking for arrowheads.  I was right.  The hard rain had uncovered a couple of good finds.

The top find is about 3 inches long and was actually broken.  If you look closely you can see a crack about half way up the arrowhead.  I immediately picked out the bottom half and saw that it was a new break.  Donald, the guy that does the logging, moved a lot of ground with his bulldozer and probably broke it in the process.  So I kept looking around and sure enough, about 3 yards away I found the top half.  Haven't been able to identify it yet.  The second find looks to be a repurposed arrowhead.  It was probably broken beyond repair so it was reshaped into a scrapper or thumb knife.

 

This point I found in the same area.  It's a Kanawha Stemmed dating back 5,000 - 8,200 years.  It's an unusual find for this area as they're more associated with West Virginia, which actually isn't all that far away.  I don't know what material it's made from either as I don't recall any pure white chert/flint around this area.  I put numbers on them to help me remember their identity and where I found them.

 



Again - this broken point was found in the same area I usually hunt.  Fortunately I found the best part which is the base where most of the identification features are.  This I identified as a Little Bear Creek which dates 1,500 - 4,000 years ago.

 



And lastly, another broken point, but the best part.  I found this down by the logging mill about 1.5 miles down the mountain from the house.  It's unique enough that I should be able to identify this one.  Are ya bored yet??  Looking at arrowheads is kinda like watching a tennis match, unless you're really into it - you loose interest quickly.
Ah well - about a week after the kids left, Cathy had a bursectomy.  She had been having a severe bout with bursitis in her left hip for about 2 months and her doctor finally told her that his last resort would be to remove the bursa sack that was inflamed.  So - that's what we did.  It was same day surgery and took about 45 minutes.  It got rid of the pain she'd been having but the location of the surgery is proving to be a difficult issue.  It's hard for her to sit for any length of time and getting into and out of bed is also a pain, no pun intended.  Things are looking up tho as everyday she gets a little better and the pain a little less.  We are getting back to normal well enough that the neighbor came down and asked her if she wanted any more tomatoes.   Cathy has never turned down tomatoes so - -
we processed about 30 pounds of them buggers and got 13 pints of spaghetti sauce.

Now to figure out what to do with the remaining 40 pounds or so.  I'm sure Cathy will come up with something.  She's toying with the idea of tomato soup, which I think is a super idea.  Love tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwich.  We already froze a bunch and canned plain tomatoes.  They always come in handy during the winter.  I guess that's about all for now.  Ta Ta

Whirlwind August

Wow - these past few weeks have been like in "Fast Forward" mode for Cathy and I.  Cathy has been having a real bad time with bursitis in both hips, the right side much worse.  Went to her orthopedic Dr. and he had had her on pain meds and anti-inflammatory (Ibuprophen).   It helped but didn't seem to be getting any better.  So - now she is scheduled for a bursectomy on the 19th of Aug.  During Cathy's bout with discomfort, our daughter, Kristy, arrived (23 July) with her four children for a 3 week visit.  Her oldest is 18 and the youngest is 14 months. 

We weren't sure until the last minute that she was going to be able to come to Tennessee for a summer visit.  But - they made it.  The last time they were here at Christmas 2013, Hunter, the little guy, fell off the bed and fractured his leg.  Now he's a real handful as are most little boys.

 

He sure likes his Gma's cooking.

 

He's a real "Cool Hand Luke"

 

Lilly Marie is absolutely certified "horse crazy."  She runs around the house and yard neighing like a horse and galloping everywhere.  So we contacted a friend that has horses and arranged for her to ride a real one.  She was blown away and never expected it.  Back when she was a lot younger and I had our horse "Jim", Lilly was scared to death of him.  But the next time she came up she was enamored with him and unfortunately that was the time when we had to put him down.  I believe we can say that Lilly had a good time at Gma's.

And what visit to Gpa's would be complete without the guys going 4 wheeling ~ ~ well does just sitting on one count.  Hunter thought so.  Of course, when the grandparents have a pontoon you just have to spend some time on the lake - right.

 

 

  Well - throughout their visit we had some real pleasant weather but we also had a few days of this -

The kids were amazed that you could actually watch the rain approaching from over the mountains and watch it pass by.  Unfortunately all good things come to an end and they had to leave today, headed back to Florida.  Its a hard 12 hour drive with four kids, but Jynna Mae helps with the driving and that takes a load off Kristy.  Kaylee is also a helper in watching the little ones during the travel so the workload is spread around.  We just love having them visit but it usually only happens once a year or sometimes twice a year if we're lucky and can afford it.  Like I said, it was a whirlwind but a truly enjoyable visit.  The grand daughters and Kristy pitched in and made the work load on Cathy a whole lot easier.  With Cathy's surgery scheduled for next week, we'll be in flap mode until her rehab  is complete.  Not sure how long it will take her to get back to normal mobility but I guess we'll find out.

More Stuff

Got some pictures of my 50th class reunion that were sent to us by a classmate Joyce Holley.

Amazingly, this cake accurately pictured our old high school building in Kinmundy, Illinois, a town with the population of about 900 in 1964.

Our School colors were purple and white.

That's Cathy, my wife, on the right sitting next to classmate Patsy Rose.  Between these two gals you can see my cousin Junie (John) and his wife Juanita.  I hadn't seen Junie in over 10 years.

 
 
 
 
 

 

 This be my sister Diane and I.  We sat just across the table from Cathy and Patsy.

 Me shaking hands with classmate Eddie See.  Eddie and I were at our last class reunion.

 

This is Junie again.  We were asked to stand and give a brief history of our lives since graduating.  Naturally everyone was reluctant to stand and talk, yours truly included.  But good ole Junie took care of that.  As soon as he had finished - he pointed across the room at me and put me on the spot to be the next victim.  So - we always obey our elders, right. 

Yup.  I did and kept it mighty short. 

This is our entire class gathered for a picture.  Out of a class of 42 there were 30 of us attending the 50th class reunion.  There was one guy, Marvin (Butch) Barbee who was there but he's not in this photo.  It was really an enjoyable afternoon of renewing old acquaintances and reliving some old memories.

Now for more mundane things.

Yup - more canning.  This is about 30 lbs or a half bushel of Romano tomatoes that Cathy specifically uses for her tomato sauce.  They're meatier and have a lot less juice than the regular tomatoes.  We wound up with  7 pint jars and 3 quart jar of sauce.  That should see us through the winter months but we'll probably can another batch just to give to the neighbors. 

 

Check another off the Honey-do list

Firstly - I figured it was about time to update the blog photo of the house.  I was up around 5am so thought it was as good a time as any.  Everything looked nearly perfect - the sun was just breaking the horizon and had a red glow to it,  the front of the house has light shadow across the porch area and the background mountains showed the typical lifting fog that gives them a smokey look.  But - by the time I got what I thought was going to be a good shot the sun had moved up farther on the horizon and the lighting was starting to overpower the picture.  I took it right quick before it got any worse.  So there you have it - 5:30am on our mountain.
I finally got Cathy's high priority item checked off the Honey-do list.  She wanted her living room done over and that's what we did.

 

It took about 3 days with both of us working together.  We moved all the furniture into the middle of the room, took down all the wall decorations, removed all the wooden trim from floors, doors and windows, and filled all the holes in the walls and sanded them smooth.  This wasn't just the living room cause this house is an open floor plan.  So it included the kitchen, dining room, and utility room.  Cathy had already decided she wanted a chair rail, crown molding, two tone walls and darker trim, and that's what she got.  She painted most of the trim and moldings while I painted all the walls.  I cheated on the crown molding cause I hate cutting the compound miter for the corners (upside down and backwards) and at my age, I'm easily confused.  Actually age has nothing to do with it.  Anyway I used the quick corners from Lowes.  All you do is run the molding up to the corner then set the corner piece that joins both pieces of crown molding.  I never realized just how out of square/plumb walls and ceilings could be until I started this project.  I even added some new words to my vocabulary.  Got a little more touch work to do and we'll be done.  NEXT!!!!!

And the beat goes on - -

More canning.  It's the thing to do when the time is right.  We're just now finishing up all the canned goods that Cathy put up last year and it really saved on our grocery bill.  We still have some of the frozen fruit left.  Went back to Somerset, Kentucky and got more corn and green beans to put up.

That bag holds about a bushel of corn which we shucked and then cut the corn off the cob.

 Joe, our neighbor, had also brought us about a peck of cucumbers so Cathy processed them also.  Found this dude in with the qukes

 

Two growing off a single bud.  Still cucumber though.

 

And there you have the results.  Fourteen pints and 4 quarts of corn and 8 qts of dill pickles.  Ah - so now we get to rest - right, Uh uh.  Next week it's peach season.  We get a bushel of peaches from South Carolina and process them also.  We can mostly but vacuum pak and freeze some for that really fresh flavor.  We only have 2 qts of peaches left from last years canning season.  Thank God it's been cooler lately or we'd be sweltering with all the heat this canning gives off.  Now I'll take them down under the house for storage.  It's not actually a basement.  The house was built into the hill side so the land slopes under the house and there's a fairly large space underneath that stays the same temperature as the inside of our house.  Excellent for storage.  I even have a potato ben for long term storage of potatoes and onions. 
Been doing more research on the family genealogy.  I mentioned in an earlier post that we had stopped in Olney, Illinois to research the county records.  I found a bill of sale for the grave site of Lewis P. Elston.  It conveys the grave from John B. Porter, who appears to have been the Funeral Director in Olney at the time.  So this piece of paper confirms the burial spot for Lewis.  Now all I have to do is confirm his Civil War record and I can petition the government for a military marker for his grave.  Currently, his grave is unmarked.

His grave is located just to the left of the pink granite marker in the upper right side of the photo. 
 I hate seeing unmarked graves, even though I understand that not everyone can afford the prices charged for stones these days.  I was sexton for a 50 acre city cemetery for over 6 years and remember so many graves went unmarked.  I tried to ensure that our records were current and accurate so that everyone buried there was accounted for and could be easily located, even without a marker.  Next trip up that way I'm gonna try to talk to the caretaker of the Olney city cemetery to see how they manage and who installs their monuments.  Oh well, onward and upward.