The Downside of Spring

Very few things in life are purely good or purely bad, and that includes spring. The downside to spring, of course, is yard work. It was quite warm, bordering on hot, over the weekend, so there wasn’t much excuse to stay inside.


Mrs. Fetched decided that the entire front bed needed to be tilled up so she could re-arrange it. Figuring it would be easier to till up without the stepping stones in the way, I pried them out of the ground and stacked them off to the side. There were 25 of them all told, some of which were buried under dirt or plant-sprawl. This wisteria was hiding two, maybe three of them. I just probed around with the shovel, heard the tonk, and pried out the stone.

The hard part was when I started tilling around a couple of the butterfly bushes along the driveway: I’d forgotten those beds were graveled (easy enough to do when the gravel is covered with dirt, grass, and leaves). The Mantis about shook my arms off before I was done. We covered that area with mulch cloth and eight bags of pine bark. I also appropriated three of the stepping stones so I could cross it (on the way to Studio FARfetched) barefoot.


Brown Thrashers are Planet Georgia’s bird, which is appropriate. They get into your business, attack their reflections in car windows, and roost in inconvenient places. Like the little porch in front of the studio. They’ve been roosting there at night through the winter, and I’ve shoo’ed them away I don’t know how many times (and ducked many more times when trying to go in and they freak out). Although it was rather warm in the studio, I had stuff to do; the thrashers kept flying back & forth outside, waiting for me to leave.


Here’s one of this year’s houseguests, perched in the dogwood outside Studio FARfetched, waiting for me to get back to the yard. They’re going to love it when I replace the burned-out light bulb on the porch. I figure I’ll wait for the young to get gone, then I’ll put tack strips in the rafters. They can use one of the several bird houses we’ve put up around the manor.


The upside of spring, of course, is that I’ll be riding the motorcycle to work. Daughter Dearest is getting Cousin Splat’s parking permit, so she can drive herself to school…

Pretty weeds

One certain sign of spring at FAR Manor is that the weeds start waking up and (in some cases) offering bribes. One of the prettier weeds, the wild violets, are nearly impossible to eradicate. I even poured old kerosene on them over the winter, and they only died off temporarily. The lawn mower passes over them and leaves them pretty much unscathed.


This is what they look like up close and personal.


A few of them, for whatever reason, are more white than violet. I have no clue.


Here are some cheerful yellow flower-weeds popping up amongst the violets (and the grass).


Cutting one yellow flower-weed out of the herd.


Mrs. Fetched buys a lot of flowers and plants them in various places. She doesn’t really have to bother, but she likes bigger blossoms and putting them where she wants them. These don’t get out of the grass and are nickel- and dime-size. What do you want for free?

When is beach grass not beach grass?

Answer: when there’s no beach. Then I guess it’s broom grass. Mrs. Fetched says so anyway, and I have no reason to doubt her.

Shortly after I took this picture, I got the weed-eater and cut it all down — I figure it will come back better now that it’s gone to seed. Before that, I zapped the frondy border plants that are supposed to be cut back every year. I cleaned up some of the big garage, finding three washer hoses (all bad, according to Mrs. Fetched, so why were they in there?), several half-used bottles of motor oil, infinity dead ladybugs, and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that will get carted to the community yard sale (I think they start next month). Daughter Dearest’s boyfriend got an NTSC monitor for his PlayStation, one of four that Mrs. Fetched had laying around from her analog editing days — to my surprise, he took the smallest one because it wouldn’t require a lot of space. I think I’ll take the other three to the yard sale too, mark them as “gamer monitors,” and see if anyone bites. Somewhere in there, I put the wick in the kerosene heater, but I think I need to dump the old kerosene and try again.

But I digress. I also began a pine eradication program harvested my mulch garden. I’ll let them dry out for a month or so then feed them to the chipper-shredder. We transplanted some bushes, then I got the Mantis out and tilled up a bed and planted some garlic that my friends gave to me. I covered the dirt with some of the brush grass, hoping that will keep the dogs from digging in it. Finally, we fixed the weatherstripping on the bottom of a door. Yeah, it’s been a busy day, but it beats chicken house work. :-) Besides, it’s part of my escape plan: we can’t get away from the chicken houses unless we sell FAR Manor, and we’ll have a better chance of selling it if the place is cleaned up. So I’m going to work on getting rid of stuff we don’t need, which will make the rest easier to keep tidied up!

March has definitely come in like a lion. The claws (heavy storms) went well south of us, but the roaring wind is still with us and probably will be through tomorrow.

Abandoned Farmhouse

Abandoned Farmhouse

This long-abandoned homestead caught my eye a couple of weeks ago on a sunny weekend afternoon.

Hello Wet Snowy February

This isn’t the first time a change of month has been somewhat dramatic.

4–5 inches of snow in front of FAR Manor

We were up pretty late last night; some co-workers drove all the way up to FAR Manor to avail themselves of Mrs. Fetched’s video editing services. As always, it took several hours longer than expected; they didn’t get out of here until nearly midnight (and she charges by the hour, cha-ching!). But they were happy, and that’s what counts.

So the weather dudes were predicting possible light icing and up two 2 inches of snow “in the higher elevations.” Oops.

The good part is, we were up so late wrapping up with file conversions that I needed a good excuse to sleep late this morning. Looks like I got it! Unfortunately, I have to get into the office today; I have a critical project that needs finishing and I have to deliver the video files to the co-workers.


I’ll wrap this up with some more snow…

More snow

A second picture of today’s snow…


…and a video clip of last year’s snow, two weeks short of a year ago.

Stay warm and dry if you can. (Yeah, yeah, Solar, I know you will!)

Winter yard work

Global warming aside, winters tend to be mild on Planet Georgia. At least they seem that way to one who grew up in Michigan. Mrs. Fetched got me doing what I’d planned to do anyway — cleaning up the yard. I’d taken care of the front yard a while back, but had an issue preventing me from going much further.

The perfect Christmas tree,
if you have a bucket truck

She wanted to move some plants around, as part of a master plan to run a driveway loop around the front of the house, so we tackled that first. A yellowbell that gets run over a lot (like it cares) already was in the way of the proposed loop route, so we moved it out back. Five cypresses that grow into monstrous Christmas trees have sprouted around the big one (pictured here), so we dug up three of them, moved one to the back, and potted the other two. We can’t think of a good place to put them, so I think they’ll go to her mom.

That left the leaves — and without a generator, the blower couldn’t reach past where I’d already cleared things out. But when there’s a will, there’s a way, and Mrs. Fetched is nothing if not willful. She brought the blower around to the back yard as I was raking out from under the steps (a corner that traps leaves) and suggested we could use an outlet on the porch. It then occurred to me that there was an outlet just inside the basement door, and that was enough to get us going.

Even with fewer trees out back, we had a lot of leaves on the ground. Once you get beyond a certain point, the blower really isn’t much help — you just have to wade in with a rake and plow them around with your legs. We eventually got them down into the moonscape where Buster T. Butthead has his run, so now he has plenty of nesting material. We loaded up a tarp and took some of them to one of the pens as well.

Some kind of holly…

While working on the leaves, I noticed the yellow berries on the backyard hollies — but we raked until things got dim so I had to wait until this morning to get pictures. The light was better, so it was probably worth the wait (and thank God for another day off!). I also dragged out Clickzilla and took a few more; I’m looking forward to seeing how those turn out (film, jeez, how did we ever cope?).

We also designated one of the beds as the Official Herb Garden. I’m not going to move what’s already established — the rosemary plants are happy as can be, and the parsley took a big hit during the summer but has started recovering with cooler weather. I was given a big pot of garlic, so that’s going to get planted shortly, and I have chives in a pot that need to be planted. I’ll get some mint and oregano when the spring shipments start.

The bottlebrush aka Pampas Grass is still looking good out there. Some of the trees have already started to bud out, which is not good — we have at least two months of Anything Goes weather ahead of us, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to get clobbered by March.

Now that I’ve upgraded the blog, I’ve also tied it to my Flickr account. I’ll be futzing with the layout later, perhaps today.

Outdoor life

A brief quiz: if a gutter looks like this, is it time to replace it?

Top view:


Bottom view:

It's amazing how much crud can accumulate in a rain gutter over a year; this is what I found after cleaning it out.

We got to sleep late this morning — Mrs. Fetched has been doing a fair bit of that since the chickens went to the store, which is good because she needs some rest — but the rest of the day has been busy. I was blowing & raking leaves in the front yard (it's easier to use the blower to get them out from under the hedges, but faster to rake them once they're in the yard), boggling at how many there were, when I finally ran out of extension cord. I’d been planning to run the generator anyway, so I went to the detached garage to get it.

It wasn’t there.

I looked again — there’s a lot of debris in there and it could have been buried — but it still wasn’t there. Mrs. Fetched grabbed her smellphone and started calling numbers in her Received list until she found someone who was with The Boy. He tried telling us that we had helped him load it onto a truck and take it to the place he’d stayed the last two summers! WRONG — we wouldn’t have sent anything over there that we hoped to ever see again.

We jumped into Barge Vader and rode over there. The lady of the house was home, and we asked her about it. “Oh, it was here but it was stolen off the back of Tony’s truck.” Whoever Tony is, and why was it on the back of his truck in the first place, and why didn’t she report it stolen? More likely that she pawned it for drugs or defense attorneys.

So The Boy is toast around here. Mrs. Fetched was ready to confiscate his large guitar amp, but he’d gotten in the house (idiot me left the ladder out at the outbuilding, where I took the above pictures) and picked it up already. We did grab the one (best) guitar he left here though. But if he expects to set foot in this house (legally) again, he’s going to start doing things our way. More likely, he will live elsewhere until he ends up in jail.

The Bikes of Autumn (and the rest of the year)

With the Moonshine Festival out of the way, so also goes October. Perhaps now I'll get to rest on weekend mornings. It would be good start to not have the $#@&!! phone ring at 7:30 a.m. But I digress.

Like all good festivals, Moonshine starts off with a parade. What makes this parade different is that it ends with a cavalcade of bicycles, rolling out on the bike tour. During my vacation posts, I mentioned that road cycling clubs are up in this (red) neck of the woods. Some of them are actually working with the planetary DOT and the county to put in bike lanes, er, down the road. And they have already laid out 30-mile and 62-mile routes. Both routes run right past FAR Manor (this particular shot is just up the road).

Naturally, laying out a route that long takes some marking and signing. Since posting signs on the DOT right-of-way is a hassle, the easy thing to do is get out a spray can and mark the road itself.


Not all the marks are completely serious. You get on some of the less-travelled back roads (which are safer for cyclists anyway), and you can have a little fun with your spray can without dodging cars.

This particular marker is not far from where Lobster’s family lives.


Along the highway, heading out of town. Both routes take the side road up ahead.

That’s my car up at the corner. The wide angle shot makes it look a long way off, but it’s really no more than 100 yards or so.


On the hill approaching FAR Manor from the north. This is a steep enough climb that speeding on a bicycle would be difficult indeed.


I really hope that they put the bike lanes in — I haven’t heard of a cyclist getting pasted by some yahoo in an F250 yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

He’s back!

No, not The Boy, although he was gone for a couple of days. I’m talking about this guy:


There’s a lot of weird bugs in the world, but to me the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth stands out as one of the weirdest.

The butterfly bushes have been a little scraggly this year, up to the last week or so when they finally got the idea. We have to cut them back pretty severely each year to keep them from taking over the manor grounds.

Three fools in a pool

The Boy, me, and Daughter Dearest at the resort last weekend. I have since had major bush-hogging done to my hair.

Last winter’s ice storm

The beginning and end of this year have seen ice storms at FAR Manor now. The storm in January was much stronger, icing up the ground as well as the trees (only the trees today). Even in the northern reaches of Planet Georgia, ice doesn’t stay around too long — so you grab the camera while you have the chance. Today, I didn’t have the chance... but January’s storm was more photogenic anyway. Here’s a few pictures....

On the road in front of FAR Manor.


Part of the front yard. The tree dominating the picture flowers in the spring.


A Christmas ornament of sorts. Too bad it would have been just a stick 10 minutes after bringing it inside...


This is my personal favorite. It has been the desktop wallpaper on my iBook all year now.

Fall at the Falls

I rag on Planet Georgia a lot, but I’ve been indoors too much lately. I had occasion to get out Sunday afternoon, and got a reminder of why I moved here in the first place. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, doubly so for November, and the leaves were finally starting to show their true colors.

As always, click for the big picture...


Amicalola Falls State Park has plenty of hiking trails: if you just want to tramp around for an afternoon, or spend the next five months walking to Maine, you’re in the right place. I took the easy trail, from the lodge parking lot to the top of the falls.


Big payback for a little effort, no? A little foot-bridge crosses the creek at the top of the falls.


It was a bit crowded this beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I had to wait my turn to get to the rail. I’ve been here often, so I took a few quick shots and let someone else in.


Driving up and down the mountain can be scary, what with a 25% grade. Just make sure you have good brakes going down.


Plenty of color down at the bottom as well as the top.

I was steering with my knees and taking pictures out the window. Don’t try this at home, kids.


This is the highest waterfall in the eastern US: 729 feet (a bit over 220m for the metric-using population). It was probably a real sight to see in July or early August, with all the rain we had.


The DNR stocks the reflection pool down at the bottom of the falls with trout and other fish. Even if they didn’t stock it, it would be fun to just sit along the edge, pretend to fish, and take in the sights.

A hiking trail winds around the left side (from this angle) of the reflection pool, and winds straight up the mountainside, about a third of the way up to an observation deck. I got a phone call from an annoyed-sounding Mrs. Fetched at this point, so I can’t show it to you here. Maybe some other time.


If you’re into mountain biking, Nimblewill is about ten miles east of the falls. And like the New Yorkers who have never gone to the Statue of Liberty, I mostly sit at home and blog when I’m not having to deal with other stuff....

Hallowe’en at FAR Manor

I’ve considered Hallowe’en my favorite holiday for a long time. This may seem strange coming from a Christian, and a fairly conventional one at that, but it’s because we can relax on this holiday. Sure, there’s decorations to put up, and we’ll slip leftover Hallowe’en candy in Easter baskets, but there’s not the added pressure of cantatas, special church services, or shopping. Some of my bob-sisters take this holiday more seriously, and (like much of the Christian calendar) we co-opted the old Pagan holidays to make new converts a bit more comfortable. How soon my brethren forgot history...

But I digress.

Even at this time of year, there’s color to be found. Besides the fall flowers — pansies defying the frost and the more muted displays of wild flowers — the dogwood trees show deep red berries, six or seven months after the blood-tipped white of early April blooms.


Kudzu is an alien lifeform that has taken over much of Planet Georgia. At this time of year, after the first near- or actual frost, its brilliant summer green is starting to fade. In a few more weeks, the leaves will wither and drop away, leaving bare vines behind for the winter. I keep telling myself I’m going to pull down a few of the vines and try weaving again. The Boy and Mrs. Fetched made fall wreaths from kudzu vines a while back; my mother-in-law sold several at the Moonshine Festival that year.

Left unchecked, kudzu pretty much takes over. On the other hand, trying to kill it doesn’t make much difference. This is one tough plant. I’m told that the Japanese prize the roots, and think we’re crazy for trying to get rid of it. I’ve also heard of companies that get paid to plow up and remove kudzu from fields, and then they turn around and export the roots to Japan. Now that is a business model: get paid on both ends.


Daughter Dearest ready for our party, and trick-or-treating later on. Knowing that she was going to be a major babe doesn’t make it any easier now that she is.

[Quick story: Half DD’s lifetime ago, desperate for a costume, I grabbed a dress from the wife’s closet, stuffed a bra, and called it good enough. DD was extremely non-amused, and still hasn’t gotten over that.]

She helped one of our friends get ready too.


The boys all took off to watch Saw II or something similar; so much for having a bonfire. We just stayed inside and played Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix and had a great time. A couple of guests are on the floor here. That thing is fun — I’m officially interested in a video game again.


On the way back from the movie, Lobster got his very own Hallowe’en present from the local constabulary (74 in a 55, smoooooth). We made the mistake of letting The Boy take the car & pick up M.A.E., then go to the movie. On the way back, we’re told, he & Lobster were racing; The Boy was ahead as the two lanes narrowed to one, and Lobster wasn’t backing off, so he got on the brakes just in time for Lobster to go roaring by a cop. We told them it was Quota Week.... The funny thing is, it’s Lobster who has a radar detector (and had it turned off).

Herding cats

Nearly home from dropping off Daughter Dearest, I saw several pairs of eyes reflecting my headlights on both sides on the road, and got on the brakes. A few seconds later, I saw a ran-over kitten in the road, and several survivors off to the side. Dangit, I thought, some ’hole dropped ’em off. I pulled off to the side, thinking maybe I could catch all or most of them (I think there were five, some black, some tan/white), take them home, and let them live in the outbuilding until I could find homes for them. From experience, I’ve found the best way to give away kittens or puppies is to take them to a Wal-Mart. Their unwritten policy seems to be “people taking the critters will buy pet food and accessories.”

Little wild teases: they would stand their ground, let me walk right up to them, then run away as I bent over to grab them. Then I saw a bigger cat and realized it wasn’t a dump-off. The mama was a bit friendlier; she let me touch her (and was she skinny!). She was on the side of the road I’d been driving on, calling to the babies who were on the other side. So I chivvied the little buggers across the road (by pretending I was trying to catch them) and away from the pavement, then went on home. If they’re still hanging around tomorrow, I’ll take some catfood to them. That mama looked like she could use a couple of turns at the Fire Mountain buffet line.

Happy? Campers

The Boy, Lobster, and a cousin.

Come and dig my herbs

Current music: di.fm Goa-Psy

Like I've said, it's not a 24/7 suck-a-thon here at FAR Manor. I started a few herbs last year: mint, Greek oregano, rosemary, and sage. The first two went into a flower box that I could bring inside for the winter; the others went into the ground. Turned out there were two sage plants in the little pot, so I separated them and planted them both.

Everything thrived, so I added some more this year: parsley, marjoram, basil, and thyme. Given all the rain we've been having, everything is continuing to thrive. Basil especially seems to like lots of light and lots of water -- if it doesn't rain, I pretty much have to water it every day. I made some pesto with it already (it was GREAT by the way), and it took all of two days for the plant to sprout replacement leaves.

I've included a macro shot of the oregano in bloom. I think it's cool how the buds look like tiny green roses. Actual size is about 2mm across.

Fire in the hole(s)

So a week ago, wife-o-licious was mowing the lawn while I was splitting logs (more on that later) and ran the mower over a yellow jacket hole. These little barstids seem to think that just because they dig a hole in the ground, they own the ground around it. She got stung on the hand, which swelled up rather alarmingly but just on this side of having to do something about it. The hole was easy to locate, being next to an above-ground root, but with all the rain we've been having there wasn't anything we could do about it immediately.

Now last weekend, I'm splitting logs again. We had one group come and cut down some trees in the back yard that were leaning toward the manor, while another was cutting pines down in the woods. So group #1, not wanting us to get paid by group #2 for the timber, cut the logs into 6-foot lengths instead of the 12-foot lengths we requested. I decided I'd split the logs down to 6 inches so we can rent the biggest baddest chipper-shredder that Home Depot has to offer and make lots o' mulch. So I dragged a log out of the brush at the edge of the woods, and quickly noticed yellow jackets swarming not eight feet away. I high-tailed it out of there, coming back a little later to locate their hole.

Finally, a dry early night. Yellow jackets go down with the sun. So armed with a flashlight, a gallon of gas, and a box of matches, we marched to battle. It was a rather one-sided affair: locate the hole, pour in two quarts of gas, toss a lighted match in its general direction. FWOOMP! Burn baby burn!

I paid way too much for FAR Manor. I'm not sharing it with any wasps besides the one I married. :-P

More wetness

We weren't finished drying out from Cindy when Dennis came by. Oh sure, the center of Dennis was over in the next state or two, but that didn't stop us from getting just shy of 4 inches of rain in two days, and another half-inch the next day.

Being on top of a hill, FAR Manor isn't prone to floods. (If there's ever a flood that nails us here, call for Noah.) However, we do have a gravel driveway, and the heavy rain washed much of it down to the bottom. It actually took less time than I expected with a shovel and rake (no implements of destruction, unfortunately) to fill in the newly-created creek bed and knock down some high spots. If Wife-o-licious runs over it a few times with her barge (aka Nissan Pathfinder), that should pack it down good & solid.

Drying out

The tropical system formerly known as Cindy came wandering by here overnight. I got all the plants in last night, figuring they didn't need to float away.

A bunch of rain, some thunder, very little wind. My rain gauge had almost 4 inches of water in it, although there was probably 1-1/2 inches sitting in it from previous rains this week. So we came in on the low side of the predicted 2 to 4 inches of rain.

Not much flooding this time, certainly nothing like last year. But it's only early July, and we've already had as many tropical systems come to visit as we did last year. Looks like Dennis the Menace is already a major (Category 3) hurricane a couple of days in front of hitting the Florida panhandle, and each forecast update has shifted its track this way. Luuuuuuvly.