Cabin and Road Trip

Old paint, new paint.

In this case, a whole week got away from me.  I started on this post last Sunday, but had to stop writing because of a million and one things that needed to be done right at that moment.  I never had a significant enough amount of time to get back to it.  So today's post is really last Sunday's post.  I finally was able to get back to it this morning to finish the text and add the photos.  Next week I will be blogging about the doll.  I have not yet given up hope of getting the doll completed in time for the competition, but I will have to scale things back a bit.  I hope you will enjoy the photos from the road.

Because it was the week of the Fourth of July, we headed up to the cabin and spent a week.  Since we were away, I did not have any time to work on the doll.  The good news is that I was able to get to the store and purchase the bubble wrap I needed to finish the project.  (Fingers crossed that two more rolls of wrap will be enough.)  It seems that I will have time to work on the doll this week, so I hope to complete the under layer that represents the muscular system.  I will be blogging on that next Sunday.

Our home away from home.

Sometimes all the cabins in the area are occupied, and we spend time catching up with friends.  Other times we are the only people up there.  This time we had the place all to ourselves.  It was so quiet.  The only sounds were the rushing of the stream, birds singing, and the wind in the trees.  Only rarely did we see a car.  I guess everyone else had somewhere they wanted to be.

Maybe I should add the sound of buzzing insects as well.  This time of year, the gnats are out.  Not just a few gnats, but gnats in great clouds that circle around your head.  Seriously, we have gnat hats: mesh drapes over a hat and sits on your shoulders.  Sometimes you have to wear them to be able to breath without inhaling gnats.  These gnats are sometimes called No see ems.  They are really tiny; so small that they can fly in through the window screens.  It seems like they are all teeth.  If you are bitten you will know it.  You get a bump like a mosquito bite.  It itches unmercifully, and if you scratch it the bump turns into a sore that can last for quite a while.    Even if you have the self-discipline not to scratch it, it itches in your sleep.  You are probably going to scratch it then.  FYI:  according to an article I read in a magazine (I cannot remember if it was Discovery, Smithsonian, or some other magazine, but something of a reputable source.) these gnats are related to the mosquitoes that carry Zika virus.   Anyway, we returned home with a fair number of gnat bites.

Despite the gnats, we still had work to do.  Our plan for the trip was to paint the ceiling on the screened in back porch.  Fortunately, we were able to complete that job.  Unfortunately, we lost a day because we had to deal with a cabin situation.  A family of mice had moved onto the screened in porch.  When we arrived, we found the plastic covering the picnic table had been turned into a lake of mouse urine.  Mouse dropping covered the entire floor of the porch.  They had chewed a hole into a space where the porch roof rafter joined to the house.  We needed to clean and disinfect. 

These were not small mice like we normally see.  They were probably a half size larger that a normal house mouse.  (Field mice maybe?)  When my husband went to repair the area where the mice had chewed, four mice jumped out of the hole, landed on his shoulder, and then jumped to the ground.  We were trying to chase them out the door, but the mice weren't having it.  This was their home and they planned on staying.  They were hiding under and in the wood stacked in the wood rack and among various items stored under the picnic table.  The last mouse was hiding among the chair cushions.  One of the mice became so agitated that it charged straight at me.  I am not usually afraid of mice, but I jumped up and yelled when it came at me.  My husband was laughing.  I don't blame him.  It was kind of funny from the "It's a mouse!" perspective, but not so funny when a angry critter is coming straight at you in a rage.  Anyway, we did get the mice out of there. 

We expect the mice will be back as soon as they realize we have left.  Because of that, we took all the wood out of the wood rack and hauled it back down to the wood shed.  When we come up in the fall we will just be storing what we plan to burn while we are there on the porch wood rack.  Without the wood pile to hide in, we are hoping the mice will seek a home elsewhere.  The picnic table is covered in layers of heavy plastic.  It does not look as nice as the table cover we had on it, but I expect it will be better than the picnic table cover.

So we lost a day to dealing with the mice.  We had plenty of cleaner with us because the porch ceiling needed cleaning before it was painted.  So the porch was cleaned from top to bottom before the painting could commence.  Then it needed to dry for a day.  It took two days for my husband to paint it.  The mice had gnawed on the floor boards of the porch as well as the rafter.  The boards were primed, but we did not have the green paint we needed to cover the primer.  Now we are debating whether or not to just touch up the primed spots or just go ahead and paint the whole porch again.  Hard as it is to believe, it has been five years since the porch was painted.  Time flies.  

I smoked a turkey breast while we were up there this time.  We also made some grill bread.  With baked sweet potatoes and collards it was quite a feast.  Our other meals were fairly light.  It was hot and muggy, and we were not very hungry.  Leftovers and turkey sandwiches stood in for a few meals. I enjoy cooking up there more in the fall, when the cooler weather lets us start up the wood cook stove and a stew can simmer all day. 

Kudzu.

 

On our route home I tried to take a few photos of old gas stations and stores.  They are fast disappearing.  The few that are left are either abandoned, or turned into private residences.  I remember going into stores like these when I was a child.  Even then the stores had the smell of old wood.  They were generally dimly lit, mostly depending on light from the front windows for lighting.  There were wooden floors and wooden shelves.  By then, the wood was worn and scarred.  It had a real feeling of time that had passed.  I miss them.  New stores with metal shelving, bright lights and industrial flooring just cannot convey the same feeling. 

Other than that, most of my view from the road was of green fields or heavy tree canopy.  The fields of hay have been cut and the rolls of hay are sitting in the fields while the hay dries out.   I have often wondered whether these types of bales catch on fire.  What I remember from when they used to  dry hay in hay ricks was that you did not put hay inside until it was dry because it was subject to spontaneous combustion.  Perhaps the hay is too tightly packed to ignite.  Maybe one day I will take some time and look that up. 

I notice that Kudzu is starting to make an appearance in this area.  It is an invasive species.  It was originally imported from Asia to be used as a feed crop for cattle.  It went wild.  The plant covers everything in its path.  The joke is that it grows so fast that if a cow stands in it long enough to eat some it will entangle the cow.   It does not actually grow that fast, but the plant is a monster that covers everything. 

Well, that is about it for now.  I will be back to blogging about the doll in the next blog post.   Check back next Sunday afternoon.