Snow in Southwest Alabama

Wow! It is snowing hard outside in rural Southwest Alabama. I can’t believe it. We will on occasion have a day of snow. This may last a whole weekend. The whole world stops for snow when it happens here. I know the people further north laugh at our behavior. They don’t know us Southerners. They are descended from the pilgrims. We come from the cavaliers and scoundrels with some younger sons thrown in for flavor. We will celebrate anything.

Isn’t Mardi Gras coming from a cowbell and rake (the Cowbell de Rakin Society) proof of that? It started Mardi Gras in Mobile just south of us, They are celebrating their own snow right now.  We do our snow celebrations in predictable ways. Those with children go out in snow with them, making snow men and having snowball fights, then coming in and making snow ice cream. The mature citizens have their own way of celebrating. I can speak for them because some people would put me in their ranks, though not to my face. We settle into the house with a good book, good music and movies we have recorded meaning to watch for months. We cook something hearty and warming, sharing with neighbors because we always cook too much. How can you cook a little stew or small pot of dry beans to eat with a small pone of cornbread? We treasure the chance to escape from as normally busy life and vegetate with the blessings of God who sent the snow and society which is taking its own vacation from normality.

My brother and grandson are the family weather men and disaster preparedness designees, We don’t have to sort through the weather bulletins. They do it for us. According to my brother, There is another snowstorm (for us that means a steady snow, not a call for St. Bernard dogs), right behind this one. That means the snow won’t be gone today. We will have snow the whole weekend. Since Monday is President’s Day, we’ll have a long weekend to extend our snow adventure. According to the family sources, the snow is going to be wet and heavy, which could cause some of us to loose electricity. I started to say power, but we are in control of the ourselves, which is our power. I’m using my power to charge my cell phone, halogen lanterns I keep for hurricane time and am cooking up way to much food in case a starving stranger comes to the door during the storm ( I have watched way too many old movies already, apparently!).

I visited with my 91 year old friend, Kathryn Tucker Windham last night. She gave me a book from her southern literature collection to ready while I am reveling in my solitude. It is called “The Last of the Whitfields”. It came out about the same time as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and was eclipsed by it, She recommends it highly, so I ‘m going to start it shortly. I hear the news on Public radio in the background. It says there has not been snow accumulation on the coastal plain like this  for 20 years.
I will enjoy the solitude for a day or two, but I can predict what we descendants of those cavaliers and scoundrels will do next. When we’ve had enough of the solitude, we’ll get together and throw parties to use up all the abundance of food we couldn’t help but cook. We are natural born cooks and natural born socializers. Where two or more are gathered, there will be a party. Remember who invented Mardi Gras! (photos courtesy of Billy Milstead, our resident GPS guru and motorcycle enthusiast.)

Another View of the Same Place: Haines Island in Monroe County

I just finished reading Don and Judy’s Off the Porch blog. As always, I really enjoyed it. I love the Haines Island Park they wrote about. I enjoy it, too, but from a different perspective. If I were going there, I’d enjoy it just as much, but for different reasons. Don and Judy are outdoor people. They will get up before the crack of dawn to catch sight of special birds. I prefer to wake up at home later and ease into my day with a good cup or tea or a Coke Zero with crushed ice, depending on the season and whether I’m by the fireside, in the sunroom upstairs, or on the porch. I like to get up early enough not to have to rush out for appointments, but late enough that the sun is already up. I like to think philosophical thoughts and read something inspirational. I might also check my email at the time they are out sloshing around the sloughs communing with nature.

I ran into Don and Judy at Lakepoint Lodge recently. Neither of us had a clue the other would be there. They were there for a big birding event and I was there for historic preservation. We were both having fun, but doing different things. They were looking for birds and I was looking for historic culture. If we were both at Haines Island, we’d have different agendas. I would be sitting on a blanket with a good book, a notebook, and a chicken box from Joe McKissick’s store. It is only store on the way. He is way out in the country, but people from Monroeville drive out to get his fried chicken. It is worth the trip. I’d have a cooler of soft drinks and tea with lots of ice. I would have packed a whole series of snack. I’m always all about food not matter where I go. I’d probably invite a friend to go, too, but not one that was very chatty. When I go out in nature, I like to be quiet and ponder things. I would only take a friend that like to read as much as I did. We might go into Monroeville and get a new book from the Beehive bookstore. Chrissy, the owner always has something good to recommend. I ‘d probably also bring along the magazines that I hadn’t had time to read earlier. I’d have a big blanket or bedspread to sit on. It used to be a quilt, but now that we’ve learned what valuable folk art they are, I wouldn’t dare take one.

I am sure I will be going that way this spring. The road to Haines Island is called “the Mountain by the locals. It is very high and one of the only places in rural Southwest Alabama where mountain laurel grow by the side of the road. That is a rare treat in this part of the world.

Another thing I would do at Haines Island is to take the ferry across to Packer’s Bend and right back. It is an old ferry that is powered by a gasoline engine. It’s a fun little excursion. I wouldn’t set up my contemplation site very close to the ferry, though, because the engine is loud. This is the original Gees Bend ferry that was moved in the 1960s/ There are pictures of it in operation  in the early 1900s at the Camden Ferry Terminal and Welcome Center.

Local Folklorist, Buster Singleton and others have written about the ghosts at Haines Island. There is supposed to be a group of Indians there as well as “Crazy Nancy Haines”. I have been on ghost finding expedition with the Central Alabama Paranormal Investigators there one cold fall night. The stars were magnificent that night and we actually registered some paranormal activity on the ghost meter. We also got a picture of 3 balls of light where we found the activity. Buster Singleton, according to his book, said that he saw the Indians in the daylight. I’m willing to chance it. Haines Island is too pretty to miss.

Playing Pioneer in the Cold

It’s been a long time since it has been this cold in rural Southwest Alabama. It has been over 20 years since that Christmas Day when it went from 78 on Christmas Eve to 5 degrees in the morning. For over a week, it’s been really cold here. We have had overnight temperatures as low as 11 degrees. That is not where we are playing pioneer. It is because our little town has been without water for a week. The official word is that there are multiple reasons. The native are getting restless, also for multiple reasons: they can’t bath, flush toilets or send the children to school. There are a few who still have water, but they are not making a big deal of it – jealousy is a bad thing when it is from those you normally know and love. For those still with water, they have been officially informed to not drink the water unless they boil it for one minute first.

Many of us are not good sports about it. I went to the library to return some books. I figured more people are reading by the fireside these days and might need the books. A normally friendly librarian was downright surly. She said she didn’t have any water.

Last night I got thirst during the night and went scouting around for something to drink. I thought my bottle of vitamin water would be perfect, but I could get the top off. I drank some bottled green tea, which may be why I was awake for hours.

I had a group of church ladies over last week for soup. I didn’t have any water, which is a key ingredient in soup. I had already soaked the beans for 15 bean soup, so I just added 2 cans of chicken broth and a can of tomato sauce. It was the best I ever made. I understand now why all the famous chefs use stock in their soups because it does taste delicious. I didn’t have either the time or the inclination to simmer meat and vegetables for hours to make the soup, but on another less harried occasion, with 2 days to spare, I might. The other soup I made was potato. I used a milk based white sauce (béchamel, to those who know the difference) and thinned it with the same chicken broth. Yep, I had a cupboard full because I was visiting relatives around Christmas and didn’t use up my supply. It, too, turned out well. Soup is the perfect cold weather food and great for entertaining because it stretches easily. Just add another can of chicken broth!

We all have bathtubs full of water if we are lucky. We don’t bathe in it, just use it for flushing. Indoor plumbing is a wonderful thing. I can’t imagine having to get up and run down the path to the outhouse when nature called. I certainly would have put a slop jar in the bedroom if it came to that. Here in rural Southwest Alabama, many of our parents and all of our grandparents had the experience of using outhouses at some point in their lives. It certainly made them closer to nature. Today, many of us can empathize with the ancestors – the real pioneers. When we see a movie about the past, we see the candles and kerosene lamps, but never do we see the toilet facilities. The movies would not seem nearly so romantic with visible facilities.

What we are getting right now is a big dose of what it was like for our ancestors to survive. We do have certain advantages, though. We have paper plates to eat off of and throw away. We forget all about living ecologically green when we are in desperate times. None of us are desperate enough to go out in 20 degree weather and wash dishes in a pot of water and scrub them with sand and corncobs. We have bottles of water to guzzle after we exercise to stay fit. All our ancestors had to do was go about their daily lives to get their exercise. We have a better appreciation of how good we have it when we don’t have it for a few minutes.

I will have to close by saying that I don’t intend to move because of these brief hard times. For at least 6 months of the year, I can sit on my porch and be at peace with the world. Life is good in rural Southwest Alabama. It’s even better with soup made with stock (canned chicken broth is quite fine)!