Southern Living, Sweetie

My favorite morning happy place

Out to dinner in Wisconsin with about 10 close friends, one of the men in our group chatting with our waitress called her "hon" (as in honey) and let me tell you, the head of every woman in our group did a quick, in-unison turn in his direction as our jaws dropped.

Now this was years before I even considered living in the South. But this friend, Mike, is a salesman and at the time, he traveled extensively in the South and spent the rest of that night defending his "hon" remark to five women who had some seriously ruffled feathers.

Fast forward five years, and now I'm a shopgirl in Chattanooga. In the past four months, I've been called "sugar," "sweetie" and countless times "honey." The first time it was a young woman, bottle-blond with bubble-gum pink toenails, who called me "sugar," and all I could do was squint my eyes, cock my head and recall that night in Wisconsin. 

But now when a customer drops that Southernism on me, I flash a quick smile, slip into a Southern twang and move on with selling them that starter fertilizer or some other upgrade. Now, don't get me wrong: I can't imagine I'd ever use the lingo myself. And I think what works in the South doesn't necessarily work in Wisconsin. And maybe it doesn't "work" in the South, but believe me, it's here to stay.

SO, back at the homestead. ... The endless rain has finally ended and the power of the sun continues to amaze us, now in our third month of relying only on our solar panel for our blender drinks, evening TV and lights. The native black-eyed Susans are in full bloom, as are the coneflowers, and the grass lawns remain fairly lush. I've been well-behaved, saving my money rather than bringing home new plants; we'll see how long that lasts.

And life -- the good life -- goes on.

9-Plus Inches of No Outside Time

In the past eight days, we've endured more than 9 inches of rain. Our doors are swollen. Our cabinet drawers are swollen. Our skin is sallow. A waft of mold creeps through the cabin. The giant fire pit in the front yard is full of water. We've been stuck inside. Arrgh!!!

I took a photo of the worst part of our road, which in good times is a series of loose, rocky shelves of sandstone, but in rainy times is a small waterfall.  Mason managed to kill the photo off his 1990s-not-so-smart phone in our attempt to download it. Trust me, it was a sight.

OH, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. And the next day, too. The first day that I see half of a sun in the forecast is Saturday. Sweet Mohammed, help us!

In related news, we've managed to limp along this past week with just our solo solar panel charging the batteries (OK, OK we watched TV in the dark on Friday night, but we made it). We got just enough sunshine the past two days to bring the batteries back up enough that we may just make it to Saturday's half-sun and not have to generate any power for our evening lights and TV. Kinda cool, huh? Free electricity!

In unrelated news, I made homemade ranch salad dressing tonight and my world has been turned upside-down.

In more unrelated news, Nick turned 9 years old last week. I took a photo, but he didn't smile.

In further unrelated news, I'm greatly disturbed by the growing number of car commercials using hit songs from my college years.

And on a final note, I love these red gladiolas:

And in one final unrelated note: Mason says, "Why am I still cutting and splitting firewood for next winter? I'm retired. dammit! These are my Golden Years. (Golden Days?) Whatever.
Oh well. We got solar, a full propane tank and about nine cords of firewood. Bring on the apocalypse!
Cheers, y'all.  

Little Miss Apologies Here

My 21-year-old nephews Scott (left) and Justin

Well THAT was a long bout of silence from your favorite mountain dwellers. First, I assure you that all is well on Flat Top: The blackberries are ripening along the roadsides, and my "gardens" are looking fuller by the day. My utmost apologies for no updates. Let me list all of my excuses for our blogging silence:

1. Work. Add in my hour commute each way, and the day is basically shot. But now I'm only working three days a week, so I've got more free time!

2. Visitors: First was a surprise visit from our former newspaper co-worker Ken Chia, who had been in Atlanta watching his beloved Twins playing the Braves when he found himself with a spare three hours and somehow persuaded his fine travelmates that a side trip to Flat Top would show them the real Tennessee. Then came my sister Maggie and her family of men, who took quite well to life in the woods, especially when it came to splitting firewood and military-style (i.e. short) showers. We also dragged a few of my new garden nursery co-workers to come see where we live. And last week, our old boss from the L.A. Times National Desk was vacationing in the area, so we kidnapped her and brought her up to our shack.

3. That pesky septic system: It waited until the first week of 90-degree temps to give us trouble, and we ended up having to dig a trench (60 feet, in hard Tennessee clay) and install a new drain line. At least it was kind enough not to break down while the visitors were here.

4. Solar success: Our solar "system" has been such a success that a neighbor hired Mason to install the same thing at his cabin, keeping him busy while I've been working at the nursery.

Well, that's enough excuses. It won't happen again. And I leave you with some photos of spring's bounty!

My front porch "color"

My only rhododendron, so far.

Caesar's Brother siberian iris. Only three blooms for their first spring, but I'm remaining confident in continued success.

Flat Top Goes Solar

Isn't she beautiful? Not the wisteria bud in the foreground, but the solar panel! For the past five days, we've been tapping the sun for our power, and it seems to be working out great. Amazing, huh?

So far, this 265-watt baby, perched atop our well house, has been keeping our batteries charged quite nicely. Of course, we've just had five glorious days of sunshine. (We'll see what rainy days and gloomy winter bring. It's a work in progress, as always.) We still have to run a generator when we take showers (the well pump, 375 feet underground, requires more juice than the batteries can provide), but now we only have to run that generator for those 20-30 minutes -- however long it takes us both to shower.

While Mason's been busy on the solar installation, I've been working in the garden. I've added a few new shrubs -- camelias, mountain laurels and others -- and have been babying the new swath of lawn on the north side of the cabin. Here's a glimpse of some of it ...

Sum and Substance hosta

Check out that leaf size!

The new north lawn, with Nick hiding in the trees. See all that dirt I need to plant still?

Columbine that I planted from seed during our first summer here.

Heucherella "Stoplight" (From the Barn Nursery)

Happy Earth Day to Us

I'm more than a week late posting our big Flat Top news: On Earth Day we ordered our solar panel system. Trust me, this is very exciting! As soon as it's set up, the only time we'll have to run a generator is to refill the water tank. Stay tuned for photos and tales of our adventures getting the thing installed and wired properly. Or more accurately, Mason's adventures.

Meanwhile, signs of spring continue to pop up around here. These dwarf irises, above, grow wild around here near the creeks -- and some somehow found their way into one of my flower beds. My cheap little Home Depot azaleas (purchased long before my new gig at The Barn Nursery) continue to hang on, and the grass I seeded about two weeks ago is finally peeking up out of the soil.

Congo azalea

Encore azalea

Not sure what these are. Clipped them from a tree alongside our dirt road.

Working Girl

I've gotta tell ya: Working four days a week has really cut into my prime-time spring gardening time. But I'm still really loving the job, so I shouldn't complain. And seeing as how my friends in Minnesota just spent today shoveling 6 inches of snow, I'm damn thankful.

I'm also thankful that the Barn Nursery has some pretty cool people working there. After a bit of badgering, the dude in charge of perennials, Craig, had Mason and me over to check out his yard. People, it was truly magical.  It was a wild mix of whimsy and wonder, just packed full of the most fantastic selection of trees, shrubs and perennials. We had a lovely evening of beer on tap, shrimp off the grill -- and as a bonus, a bounty of viburnum saplings and other plants that quickly found a home in my burgeoning garden. Below is one of the many viburnums he gave me, this one a precious "shasta" from horticulture guru Don Egolf. Trust me, you should be impressed. This baby is going to be stunning in a few years!!

In other news, Mason's been laboring intensely on splitting the logs from a massive oak we felled weeks ago to make room for solar panels. The wood's grain looks like shredded wheat inside, greatly complicating his efforts. Just ask Colleen -- she helped split some while she was here two weeks ago.

And I spent the past two days roto-tilling one-and-a-half yards of compost into a stretch of dirt that will become our last little patch of grass up here on Flat Top.  As long as tonight's storms don't wash away all my efforts, I should be able to get the seeds planted tomorrow ... after work.

Guns and Gardens: Flat Top Edition

Our friend and former Star Tribune co-worker Colleen came to visit us for a long weekend. After four days here, she's convinced we could open a boutique B&B/adventure destination here called Hillbilly Holiday, which would feature survival hikes through the woods, target shooting, tree-trunk rolling and her personal favorite: log splitting.  And after all that calorie-burning, there's the hammock, Mason's fabulous homebrews and my penchant for cooking too much food. Finish the evening off with a bonfire (which we did) and we may just have a money-maker!!

Alas, we did our best to show her a good time, and we also abused her just a bit with lots of firewood splitting (she has a blister to prove it) and an afternoon of shrub planting. (See those cute yellow Kaleidoscope Abelias we planted alongside the new gathering area? That table is a new feature of the area, too; I salvaged it from a Minnesota neighbor's trash years ago and finally got around to painting and varnishing it last week.)

Today was our last day together, so we did a little tour of downtown Chattanooga, enjoyed good food and cocktails at the Boathouse on the river, then came home to a little target practice. Only Mason excelled at clay target shooting, but Colleen is a pretty mean shot with a pistol. Me? Realllllly not my thing. At all.