Overheard in Lenoir - Holiday Edition

One lucky redneck's gonna smell sexy this Christmas
Old lady barges in front of us & hands an Axe Body Spray gift set to the Walmart greeter:
"I gotta go get a cart, but this here's the last one of these in Caldwell County and I cain't have nobody taking it!"

Damn your alluring aroma Justin Bieber...
2 middle aged women peruse the perfume counter at Belk
Lady #1: (holds up tester) "Smell it? That's Bieber."

Lady #2: "Mmnn...smells good!"

Lady #1: "This uns Taylor Swift"

Lady #2: "Hold on, I still got Bieber up my nose."


As sassy as they wanna be
Grandmother & Granddaughter looking for clothes in Magic Mart
Granddaughter: "Mawmaw, you gots to git you somma these fuzzy pants!  They're only $5.99!"
Grandma: "I don't think anybody's behind should be advertising that it's "SASSY"...especially mine."

Columbus' direct route to India finally starts paying dividends
Lady checking out the spice selection at Aldi
"Koo-mun, Ginger, Curry...I cain't believe they got all these exotic spices for only .99 cents!"

Worley's Cave

The incredible, infrequently updated adventures of MatildaBeast

Parenting, much like pimping, ain't easy. Caring for our daughter, two dogs, 30 chickens & 20 acres is one big time suck; especially coupled with full-time employment & managing 16 fantasy football teams. The days melt into weeks into months until now Thanksgiving has past and we are 30 days from our daughter's first Christmas. I had saved my last week of vacation and applied it over the last 4 Fridays so I got a month of three day weekends. We tried to do something fun on Fridays before working on the farm Saturday and resting Sunday. We took Matilda to the Rennaissance Fair, drove west through Brevard & Highlands & did a 7 mile hike in South Mountains State Park with the dogs. We felled and split and stacked 3 huge oak trees into a 10 year supply of firewood. We pulled up the garden, composted most of what was left and hung the remaining peppers in the garage to dry. We mowed and mowed and raked the torrential downpour of leaves into some semblance of mulch for the orchard. Gutters were cleaned and cleared until the leaves stopped falling. Most of all, we enjoyed our time with Matilda...


the MatildaBeast on my childhood blanket

at the Renaissance Faire

the crew on a glorious autumn afternoon

the beginnings of a second woodpile

hiking through South Mountain State Park

first leaf

Grilled Pizzas From the Farm

Homemade Dough

Margherita Pizza: homemade sauce from our organic Roma tomatoes, home-grown organic basil, mozzarella cheese

Home-grown organic "Sunshine" tomatoes, goat cheese, and our organic Roma tomato sauce

Sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, mozzarella, and our organic Roma tomato sauce

Blue cheese, mozzarella cheese, fried garlic, two of our organic/free-range chicken eggs, fresh black pepper, and our organic Roma tomato sauce

Seven Weeks In

I am now entering my seventh week in the captivity of two giants. My attempts to communicate with them have been fruitless so far, despite trying varying the volume and frequency of my cries they appear to understand nothing. My every request is met with one of four standard responses: grabbing me and holding me at great altitude, removing my underpants and replacing them with a new pair, patting my back mercilessly with their giant paws or most often offering the same white liquid as a meal over and over again. It is clear that they have an excess of this gruel since the female giant usually pumps out extra after feeding me and then saves it for later in their cold storage closet. They clearly do not enjoy consuming this white fluid themselves as I never see either giant partaking of it, instead they feast on meats and cheeses and chocolate chip cookies. Although I have requested some of these giant foods many times, the ignorant beasts refuse to offer me any. My frustration grows until by evening time my only recourse is to wail relentlessly and shatter the peace & quiet they attempt to maintain in their lair. I am also now conducting experiments into the interruption of their sleep cycles by arising at various times throughout the night shrieking and force them (especially the smaller giant) to feed me or replace my undergarments in a zombie like stupor. I am hopeful that by depriving them of regular rest they may get sloppy and allow me a better chance of escape. The giants also keep two large hairy beasts in captivity who spend most of their time laying about and eating some gross variety of pelletized food and the occasional table scrap. These shaggy brutes seem to have had their spirits broken as they happily follow the giants around and do not attempt to escape even when they are released outside without supervision. They appear utterly stupid, especially the grey one with the vacant look in his eyes who runs in circles around the yard barking and howling at nothing in particular. The black beast appears older and slightly wiser, very economical with his movements and less prone to hysteria but my attempts to glean information on the giants security procedures have been unsuccessful. I am unsure if he is loyal to the giants or just cannot understand me but he seems content to remain in captivity rather than forming an alliance wedding his mobility with my superior intellect. I find it most unfortunate that I will not be riding off into the sweet sunset of freedom on his arthritic back.

The giants are easily amused and spend a great many hours staring at a screen with ever-changing colors and forms. The male giant especially enjoys watching other giants in garishly colored uniforms and padding running and crashing into one another and usually spends the better part of Sunday afternoon tabulating how many points the crashes are worth on his computer. The woman giant tries to put me in a mechanical swing so she can play some type of game where she attempts to replicate the postures and motions of other female giants on the screen all the while grunting and sweating profusely. I think I have heard her call it exercise but I have no idea what the giants intend to accomplish with their strange behaviors, although mostly tedious sometimes observing them can be fairly entertaining. One thing I especially enjoy is when they wrap me in the fabric straightjacket and allow me outside into the fresh air and sunlight, I find solace with the other captives whom the giants call "chickens" who are kept to provide the giants with white rocks that they crack open and prepare meals with. I, too, create delightful things from my bottom yet the giants just throw them away with my disposable underpants. Perhaps if I can learn to produce these white rocks, I can get moved outside with the chickens and have a better chance of escape...


our little jailbird in pink stripes

Return from Hiatus: "The Family"

Little Lady

The big brother

The middle child

So relaxed

First evening outing to "Music on the Lawn" in Blowing Rock

 

Matilda Rose

Highland Games & Pool Dogs

baby mama

check out the dude eating haggis behind the caber carrier

heave-ho

so close...yet so far

aqua aerobics for seniors

the love boat

chopping okra from the garden

homegrown fried green tomatoes & fried okra

Overheard at the Diner (Fourth of July Weekend)

How Southern pronunciation defeats naming your Mexican child "Angel"
Waitress at the breakfast joint:
Have ya'll decided what you're gonna name your baby yet?
April:
Nope, we're still thinking on it. We've got a few ideas, but we want to see what she looks like first.
Waitress:
I work at the school during the week and we have this little Mexican boy named "Aw-Hell"
Aint't that the strangest thing to call someone? All the kids just keep saying his name over and over, "AW-HELL, AW-HELL"...till we have to tell em to stop. Some of the teachers do too...

Clearly a woman with a discerning palate
Lady in the booth across from us:
I likes me some fried squirrel real good, but I can't stand the taste of no squirrel gravy...

One of the few things I'm not too interested in a discount on...
New Billboard on 321N just past Kirby Mountain Rd:
DISCOUNT ZIP LINE!




On the most important meal of the day:
Disgruntled Dad gets up and goes to pay bill...
Mommy:
Daddy's mad cause you ordered a big breakfast and didn't eat a single bite. He's going to get you a box so you can eat it later.
Three year old boy:
I'm not going to be hungry today
Mommy:
Oh, I think you will be hungry... and if you don't eat it today we'll give it to you for breakfast tomorrow.
Three year old boy:
It's not going to be any good tomorrow
Mommy:
{Facepalm}

Candid Game Camera

midnight fox

goose stepping bandit

tag team

face-off

Roadkill & the Artistry of Stewardship

Some things from our time in San Francisco already seem like they happened long ago in a galaxy far away. 3 memories from Haight Ashbury have been replaying through my mind recently on the the drive to work. One Saturday morning I woke up early and walked down to Haight Street, got in a long line of hipsters and Asian sneaker nerds to score a pair of black Nike Air Max 360s with multi-colored polka dots. I thought they were pretty rad back then, now they just remind me of what a ponce I was whenever I catch a glimpse of them on the shelf. The Tuesday night I put on some skin tight red courderoy pants and a black trenchcoat, went to open mike night at Milk, got up on stage and dropped off-beat science fiction rhymes about pharaohs & unicorns. I was deep into my 3rd verse before a lanky black dude reached for the microphone, I thought he was about to snatch it away; but instead he tilted it up showing me how to hold it so everyone could hear what I was going on about. A Monday night when I strapped on my rollerblades and skated over to watch a Seahawks-49ers game & eat pizza & talk story with my Gramps. I may have had a Maximus' from Lagunitas Brewing Co. (or two)before I decided to bomb down Ashbury hill on my way home, sailing through 3 red lights before the grade flattened out around just before the panhandle. The Seahawks won the game but I was the real winner for not getting crushed by a Muni bus. I had been run over by a speeding cop car with siren blaring earlier that year in Union Square but still hadn't learned my lesson. Thinking these thoughts as I drive up the mountain to work or ride around on the mower makes me wonder about the idiot I used to be... and long for the free time to be him once again.

Along the way to work I have been noticing a lot of road kill recently and it really eats at me. Squirrels, possums, raccoons, skunks, groundhogs and the occasional out of season deer some moron has killed and left by the side of the road for someone else to clean up. I can't properly describe the feeling inside me when I pass the carcass of some unfortunate creature that has been struck down and repeatedly flattened by passing traffic. I was talking with a woman at work about totem animals and she brought in a book to show me. As I was flipping towards the section on ravens, I saw a blurb about what it means if you have been driving past lots of dead animals lately. According to an old hippie legend, when one notices lots of roadkill it means the animal spirits are unable to rest and move on due to nature of their deaths. There was no purpose to their deaths, it was not to feed another nor due to old age or disease. They were simply crossing the road and crushed by a passing vehicle which did not see them. To put their souls at rest, to allow them to move on; the book says all that is required is that you acknowledge seeing them and say a prayer for them. I have followed that bit of hippie wisdom but I can't say it has made me feel much better. Other than arming small mammals with heat seeking missiles to even up the odds a little bit, the only thing I have been able to come up with is to drive a little slower and pay more attention. I should be clear that it's not death that bothers me anymore. Not after a year and a half of seeing chickens killed by foxes, hawks, broken legs and my own axe. Death is sometimes natural, merciful and necessary. It is the senseless violence and suffering that I am still coming to terms with.

Farming's greatest gift has been preparing me for fatherhood. In learning to care for animals, plants and the land itself; I have had to learn to put the needs of others before myself. I never came close to understanding how necessary that was in San Francisco. There were always distractions. More fancy restaurants than I could ever eat at, limited edition sneakers to wait in line for, open mike nights to drop rhymes at, soccer to play in the park, another tattoo to get, the Friday night roller blade around the city with roller brigade, a concert, festival or perhaps a foreign movie? It was all great, I loved it and I miss it. But it was all about me...April and I actually. We were living it up and enjoying every second. There were no chickens to feed and water, no trees to prune, no grass to mow and no home repairs to make. When the weekend arrived the work was over and the fun began. Now it's different and I have plenty of time to think about how while I shovel mulch, cut down trees and pick fruit. While I try to coax the stupid chicken who always gets underneath the coop back inside at night. While I raise the axe to kill the suffering chicken who broke its leg. And especially while I'm driving. The places I've been, the things I did, the person I was all seem distant yet within my grasp. Like the details of a pleasant dream you just woke from. But while responsibility has won out over recreation on the farm, I feel like I am better for it. The father my daughter will be raised by will show her that caring for others, be they animal, human or plant is an art. That we can express ourselves and create lasting beauty with sweat and a shovel just as with a brush or camera. That bringing out compost scraps for the chickens, pitting cherries & feeding sourdough sponge can all be poetry. I will show her that there is artistry in stewardship and learn from her all the joys only a little girl can teach.


the last polish golden crested and an italian ancona pullet posing for the camera

the wolf spider living in our chicken coop

Our Nursery

wood panelling, old ceiling tiles, dark brown outlets and a lot of work to be done

after sanding the walls down, cleaning up the dust and 3 coats of kilz

putting up birch tree vinyl decals from etsy.com
we took a sample of "eternity" light grey paint from benjamin moore and got it color matched at lowe's for less than half price

white baseboards, crown molding & cove molding from chris building supply & salvage
put up a new tile ceiling
white electrical outlets

april's ma and dad bought our daughter's first crib, her dad put it together but we had to take it apart to get it into her room

In Bloom

brand new rose

huevo grande

two year old himrod grapevines

navajo blackberries

new addition to the coop

april squeezes the peaches

fresh radishes

late may twilight