Monday, August 27 - Another restful day

I had to go into Danville to run errands while Barry stayed home and made some delicious peach cobbler, and worked on various Christmas presents. Not gonna tell you what -- you all will have to wait.

We heard the our neighbor, Ron, had returned from the hospital in Danville, so I stopped at Cutter's to tell Thelma, his wife, that we would look in on him just to be sure he's ok. Thelma is 65, and works basically full-time running Cutter's. Her mother, Laura, 85, is opening up a fast food place on the way to Danville, so they can use all the help they can get looking after Ron, who -- typical of males who don't want to be told what not to do -- will simply do whatever he wants. We'll keep an eye out.

Larry and Joann (sp?, Hurschell's daughter), our neighbors, stopped by this morning and gave us a locally-produced candle -- Goose Creek (click on the link) is the name. They also invited us to a cookout and sing-along down in Middleburg this coming Saturday. Sounds like a fun time, so we'll probably go, just to be sociable, and have a good time. Also, Middleburg is near the Amish and Mennonite settlement here, and there are some great small farm markets and craft shops down there. I'm thinking Christmas again -- and my stomach, of course!

To go along with our lawn tractor, I bought a 10 cubic foot trailer -- will be useful for hauling firewood, plants, garden implements, manure from across the road. It was the last one in the store (Tractor Supply -- what you need out here - click on the link) at that price, and it'll fit our needs perfectly. Mike, across the road, is going to come over and bush-hog our field -- he can use the fodder for his cattle, and it will save us the trouble of haying or mowing, especially since we will probably locate our garden there this fall or next spring.

Speaking of garden, Barry planted collard greens, carrots, spinach, and swiss chard (Thanks, Alison!) and we should get a crop before frost. It has never been lower than 32 here in September, so we will NOT get a frost until October at least, more likely November. I bought more freezer bags, just in case we get a bumper crop of greens, to carry us through the winter -- or at least what people around HERE call winter -- 2" of snow, 20 degree temps for a few hours overnight.

We should have enough firewood to get us through the winter, and thus save on heating costs. Electricity is 6.8 cents per kw (compared to about 16 in Maine), but still saving on that will help. If we keep the thermostat at about 65, the sun should warm things up during the day, and seldom are temps below 40 anyway, even in the dead of winter.

Tonight we watched Pharoah's Army, with Kris Kristofferson, which was largely filmed around here. Mike, mentioned earlier, saw Kristofferson jogging along Butchertown Road back in 1995 when the movie was made, and offered him a ride. The scenes in the movie could have been filmed in our back yard, or at least in the clearing in the hollow out back! In fact, many Danville area people, organizations, and businesses are credited in the movie. It's not available on Netflix, so I bit the bullet and bought it through Amazon.com. It's about a small troop of Union soldiers who stop at a Confederate farmhouse in the Cumberland Gap area (southeastern KY) to get provisions. The interaction between the captain and the wife/son of the confederate soldier really show exactly why Kentucky joined the Confederacy AFTER the war was over -- the way people here were treated by the Union has a great deal to say about how they reacted. Kentucky did NOT join the Confederacy, yet it was treated by the Reconstructionists as though it had.

One doesn't see many Confederate flags around (only 2 that I can recall on the way to Danville), but the sentiment is there. Casey County in 1860 was 25% black, mostly slaves -- some families in this very neighborhood owned slaves. Yet by the 2000 Census there were only about 150 blacks out of a total population of 15,000 (and that was up from 1900) -- they had been driven out by the "Regulators" (read Klan-like) after The War, so that today there are more blacks in Waterville than in this whole Southern county! The War goes on, although less obviously than in other parts of the South, or even Kentucky (like Paducah). It's just not talked about apparently.

I got a call from the gal who works in the education division at Historic Perryville -- I had asked about volunteering, or maybe even part-time work. She called while we were visiting Ron, but she'll get back to me later this week. Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually USE my teaching experience at Perryville, the site of the largest Civil War battle in Kentucky? The re-enactment is coming up the weekend of my birthday, and WE ARE GOING. Alison, I'll send pictures you can share with the kids on the team.

OK, seems like a ritual now -- fish are fed, I'm showered and squeaky clean, so it's off to bed. We'll see what tomorrow brings!