Weather Looking Up!

It’s grey, cloudy and warm! I love it! I’m back on the porch which is where I belong, not huddled by the fireside. As one of my friends said yesterday “If I had wanted to be this cold, I’d have moved to Vermont. This has been a weird, cold, not all together pleasant winter. The best thing I can say about it is that I’ve learned to build a mean fire! I have used almost two racks of wood in the process. That isn’t normal for rural Southwest Alabama! I live in a big old house that was designed for cool summer living. I do have insulation and storm windows, but there are still drafts I have to plug up. My heating bill hit the stratosphere this winter, as did everybody's that I have talked to. We got through it. Like Forrest Gump. That’s all I’ll say about that.

This week I’ve been able to get back on the porch. My wind chimes are kicking up a mighty tune because it is windy... but, hey, what else do we expect in March. I’ve had two meetings on the porch already this week. We’ve gone through a whole German stolen and a package of cookies – both procured from that local storehouse of the incredible – Dirt Cheap. You just never know what you might find there. I found a shipment of foreign baked goods. They had all kinds of holiday treats. They have upgraded my porch entertaining to a whole new level.

I don’t mind the cloudy weather a bit. I don’t even mind the stormy deluge I drove home from Montgomery in last night because I WASN”T COLD!! I hate it when I can’t enjoy the yard. I love the daffodils that are raising their frilly heads now. I love the camellias that brighten the landscape this time of year. I watch for the first roses to go on sale. I don’t like those prima donna tea roses that have to be petted. I like the heritage ki9nd that the settlers brought here from the colonies with the clippings stuck in a potato to keep them moist. There’s a historical fact for you. I often wonder about how the earlier generations did things. I just love to think of them riding in a wagon holding potatoes with rose cuttings. I have planted my first roses at the end of last month. I went to a lecture at the Rural Heritage Center on roses and the speaker told us that November was not too early to plant roses and that February was not too late. So why do they just go on sale now? I put them out anyway. My roses live, but in the past season droughts, they have not thrived. I did better last year because I bought some organic rabbit fertilizer locally from John Hall who raises rabbits. It is fine fertilizer and roses really love it. I’m going to buy more this year.

This time of the year, I love to walk around my yard and see which buds are swellings. When you see a lot of buds on the shrubs, it generally means that spring is just around the corner. I really love living in Rural Southwest Alabama where the growing season is so long. We enjoy flowers months longer than most parts of the country. My goal is to have something blooming at every season of the year. I’m getting there! All my life, I have been a flower picker. I just couldn’t resist picking flowers and making bouquets. It’s my way of celebrating life. If I’m at home, I’m going to have a bouquet in the living room. Right now the bouquet is daffodils and “Koss ME at the Gate” as my grandmothers called it. I think the pass-along plant name is winter honeysuckle. It smells loudly like the finest French floral fragrance.

I just hope that his is not a false alarm. I hope spring really is just around the corner. I think it must because the red maples are blooming along the roadsides. After them come redbuds, then dogwoods and finally the beautiful purple clusters of wisteria. It is beautiful alone the roadsides, but is scourge of my yard! I spend more time that I’d like to getting rid of it. I have an erstwhile gardener who works hard for me when he needs a few dollars. He spends a good deal of his time in jail (for not paying child support) or drinking. He is a very hard worker, He is not reliable about coming at specified times, so when he shows up, I let him work a few hours. He usually shows up on the weekends when he is short of cash at around 3 pm and works until dark. I take him when I can get him because plants seem to love him. I think he must have a good heart underneath all that liquor smell. If I let him borrow money, he will disappear for a few months until he thinks I’ve forgotten. I never let him borrow over a few dollars, so I don’t worry much about it. I take the gardening help where I can get it. I have a good friend who has turned her husband into a gardening helper. We jokingly call him “Leroy the yard boy”

I never dreamed I’d feel the pull to getting my hands in the dirt that I do this time of year. It’s like something is missing from my life if I ‘m not planting. Pulling weeds doesn’t evoke the same longing, but I’ll do that, too just to get my hands in the dirt. Welcome Sweet Spring Time to rural Southwest Alabama!

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.