Highway to Heaven

This stretch used to resemble the craters on Mars. Sweet, sweet gravel.

The one and only thing we wish we could change about living in the backwoods of Flat Top Mountain is the 2.5-mile-long dirt road leading to our house. Well, this week 0.75 miles of our wish list came true, and we are celebrating beyond belief. Just look at that photo above!! Spectacular.

Here's the story. We've been writing every government official possible for the past several months. We knew we were tilting at windmills, and indeed, the two officials who bothered to get back to us both let us know it was considered a private road and we were on our own. (Whatever happened to "No taxation without representation"?) It was up to the landowners on either side of the private road to fix it. At this point we should mention that one stretch had gotten so bad, that we took to dumping bags of quick-set concrete into potholes that were swallowing up our Jeep's front end.

For several weeks, we pursued an alleged process to request that the county take over the road. But after three weeks of un-returned phone calls, we had basically given up.

Then came last Monday. HOLY HEAVY EQUIPMENT!!! Apparently the wealthy landowner who owns both sides of the first stretch owned up that he was responsible for it. A dozer, a grader and truckloads of gravel later, WE COULD NOT BE HAPPIER!

Now, warning to all those considering a visit, you'll still do some rock-climbing to get here. But man, that first 0.75 mile is lovely.

Nick the Dog, loving the spring sunshine.

Mr. Daffodil says it's spring.

 

Waking Up to Spring

Signs of spring, until the deer ate every last one.

We are slowly shaking off our winter coma and coming to life again here on Flat Top. After two months of daily afternoon naps and long stints reading, it was almost hard to break the habit. But our first 70-degree days have helped.

Mason's first burst of spring energy was spent in the bedroom. Get your mind out of the gutter -- and into our closet! Finally, after five years of hanging our clothes on a piece of electrical conduit, Mason installed honest-to-god closet rods. Soon we'll have the whole closet area walled off with curtains, so our unmentionables will no longer have to be mentioned on our home tours.

My energy was spent in the garden, of course. The cold-weather seeds (carrots, greens and peas) are already in, as are the onion sets, and just today the arugula pushed out of the ground! Next winter I vow to get a cold frame set up so I can have fresh greens throughout the winter. Supermarket greens are officially appalling; I thought I'd have spinach this winter, but the bunnies living under our shed had other ideas.

Speaking of wildlife, we've become a deer haven. No plant has been left untouched, and the lawn may not need mowing for quite a while.  They come just as the sun sets. Front yard. Back yard. They're adorable, but ... One day we had 11 visit us at once!

Somewhere in there I also found time to do some painting. The kitchen chairs are now a muted yellow (Mason said, "It doesn't look nearly as horrendous as I thought it would"), and the ceiling of the guest room is white, in a bid to lighten up that room a bit. And while not returning to the three-day grind at the garden nursery, I've picked up a few landscape design jobs and hope to pick up a few more.

I wish I had more secrets of the woods to share. Spotted a whippoorwill today; Mason threatened to shoot it (he REALLY hates those things). Luckily it should be at least another month or so before they start their mating song.

  

Just Us and the Deer

This night, 11 deer came into our yard at dusk after we put out beer grains for them.

At the start of this coldest season, Mason and I were pretty restless. You may have noticed, but we aren't too good at doing nothing. I feel guilty if I'm not getting something constructive done. So I painted the stairs. I cleaned out my "closet" (which is really just hangers on an electrical pipe). I tried new recipes. I mended torn clothes. Cleaned the shower. I even started to workout, just a little.

Well, that was the start of the season. Now, after a good stretch when the high for the day never broke above freezing, we've become expert slackers. Most days we manage to get out of the cabin twice for Nick's daily walks, but in between? The warm cozy loft has lured us to no end. There have been novels upon novels. (Thank you, my incredible book fairy, you spoil us so!!)

A new batch from our book fairy, who we cannot thank enough!

Beer-making duties have been our only chore, and Mason handles all of that. I just help him drink it. And Nick and the neighborhood deer also score: Nick gets homemade dog treats and the deer have taken a liking to the leftover grains.

So, in summary: We are well-read, well-fed and occasionally slightly tipsy lazy asses.

But it's supposed to push 50 degrees in the coming days, so the question is: Will we be able to reverse this lazy trend? 

Making dog treats for Nick. A friend gave me some bone-shaped cookie cutters, so they're extra cute now!

Deer Update

Remember that lone camellia bud that the deer left for me? Yup, it's gone, along with the last few leaves left on the plant.

Forced Inside

Our lake,  on a really still recent day.

Winter finally turned cold on Flat Top, forcing us to slow down a bit and find things to do inside the cabin. I won't lie: There have been naps. And days when the bed never got made. And books have been finished, and others started. (For the record, 40 degrees and above and I must work outside. In the 30s? No can do.)

Sparging. Don't ask. But isn't all that natural light divine?

After several days of such egregious behavior, Mason finally found some energy today and launched into brewing some beer using the more time-consuming all-grain process (which heated up the cabin quite nicely, I might add.) Beer, yummm.

The view from my chair. I'm working on perspective.

After hitting the wall on reading, I picked up a pen and paper and started testing my drawing skills. I know, still pretty cartoony. I'm working on it.

Oh, and remember that gorgeous camilla from last week? A hungry deer (or four?) ate nearly every single leaf off the damn plant. I nearly cried. They were kind enough to leave me with one bud. Bastards! Good thing they're cute, or they'd have killing coming to 'em.

 The deer are on my shit list.

  

Peace (And a Lot of Rain) on Our Earth

The fire pit filled with water.

Holiday cheer came crashing down on Flat Top, with more than 9 inches of rain in a matter of three days. Admittedly, it rains a lot here in Chattanooga. I read news of the U.S. drought and feel guilty. And lucky. But the Christmas Day deluge?

Most of it fell overnight into Christmas morning, when we were planning to leave the mountain and do Christmas with Mom in town -- that's what we call Chattanooga, Hixson or Soddy-Daisy -- anyplace where you buy more than gas, Bud Light and lottery tickets.

The rain from two days before had already pushed our creek over our road, rushing with impressive importance for a creek that normally trickles, gurgles and burps. The firepit was already turned into a koi pond, minus the koi.

After a slight lightening in the skies, we called Mom and told her we were going to go for it.

Today the creek was still over the road, though barely.
Yesterday? It was almost scary.

Wow. Not only was our creek spread wide over our little road, the massive gravel hill just beyond it had become a river. Rivers. The rushing water cut 6" deep and 24" wide ruts in the gravel, which was bullied down the hill by the force of the water and left in a large pile at the bottom and alongside the ditches.  Damn. That little stretch of road had been one of the best in our miserable 2.5 mile trek to civilization, aka the hard-top road.

Along the rest of the dirt road, three or four creeks had claimed the right of way. Water reached the running boards of the Jeep at one point. Once we hit the asphalt, I called Mom to report our success. And to report that I would be needing a stiff drink. (DAMN, this is when we realized we forgot to bring homebrews... ACK.)

So how did we spend the day after Christmas? No mall for us. We dug gravel and dirt and rocks and mud, creating new ditches at the top of our road for better runoff. We've done this before, and I'm sure we'll do it again. Damn ATV'ers like to ride over the berm we create to guide the runoff down into the gully, rather than down our road. All we can do is keep trying.

So, I'm sore, my back seizing midway up and a fat broken blister on my right palm. Mason swears he isn't sore, but I'm certain that's just because he didn't work as hard as me. (Payback for that septic tank digging.)

And then, in the final hour before darkness began to fall, we hear the gunfire. It started with a single shot at 9:08 a.m. Christmas morning. (Someone got a new Glock for Christmas? How sweet of Santa.) But right now, it's rapid fire. An automatic? Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

"Whatever happened to peace on Earth, assholes," Mason yells.

On that note, we hope your Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Boxing Day or other family gathering be dry, restful and quiet.

Cheers.

My perfect little April Pink camellia, which isn't supposed to bloom till spring, got tricked by the warm weather.  This is the only camellia the deer have yet to devour. 

The Last of the Color

When these leaves are gone, that green grass is what helps get me through winter.
That, and the evergreens I've planted here and there.
This is the Bloodgood Japanese Maple I planted the day Dad died.

Why so quiet, you ask? Because we snuck off to Texas for a 12-day jaunt to see Corpus Christi, visit family in Arlington and surrounds, and see how many pounds Nan could gain eating three meals out every day. The verdict: A good number of pounds, or a bad number, that is ...

Visiting Arlington is now such a study in contrasts with our current life. There, we stay at Mason's ex's house and can get to the hardware store in 2 minutes. Here on Flat Top, it takes 50 minutes. To Mason's favorite burger joint, 1.5 minutes. Here? Trick question. All of Mason's favorite burger joints are in Texas.

All of that convenience -- and the thousands of restaurants within a 10 minute drive in Arlington -- create a parallel universe to Flat Top. So we go there, get our fill, appreciate it all, then retreat to the cabin and fall back in love with our little home in the woods. I can't tell you how much I look forward to winter, when I will no longer be working and we won't leave the mountain six days a week and create satisfying meals out of whatever is left on Days 5 and 6. Of course, I prefer that it be spring or summer, when it's warm, but I'm trying not to be too greedy.

This Seiryu Japanese Maple didn't give me much color last year,
 but this year? I'm happy.

When we returned to our little cabin in the woods last week, we found a forest full of leaves covering the ground and just a speck of fall color left. So far I've gotten the leaves off the grass, but there's a whole lot of raking and shredding in our near future. And soon, that pile of firewood you see in the background of that bottom photo will be keeping us warm day and night.  It's good to be home.