What a change a few days make in the weather. Because of a stationary front over the Great Lakes and southern Canada, cool air and clouds have been sent over Moore's Ferry for the last three days or so. It feels like early spring is late fall, and it has looked like rain; it looks like it did shower a bit overnight. This has made for excellent opportunities to get outside and work in the yard and garden.
When I've not been outside, I've been reading a lot. Last week, I sat down for the first time and began reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road. I've also got Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet, Faulkner's Go Down, Moses, and British dark fantasy writer Robert Aikman's Painted Devils. All good stuff.
I don't really have any plans for the coming holiday weekend. I've discussed with my parents going to the local horse show, but that's still up in the air. Shooting off some fireworks are also a possibility.
Otherwise, all remains the same in Moore's Ferry.
Here are a few photos of the garden, in progress (as we discovered last night, deer have been feasting on our cucumber leaves and corn):
Since I took this picture, we've added two more rows of beans and another row of tomatoes. Also, notice the lone potato off to the left; it grew without any help. 
Our neighbor's bean pole tipis. 
Lovely Green Mountain, off to the east.
Site of the lettuce bed, with onions and radishes . . . already ravished.
Have a nice day!
A scorcher of a day - the thermometer reads 90 degrees at 4 PM. It was 94 degrees this time yesterday, and extremely humid. I was out and about most of the day yesterday, and I suffered mightily because I need to put Freon in my car's air-conditioner. The humidity has lifted today, but the high temperatures and penetrating sunshine remains. One day away from the Solstice, and it already feels like we're there. Summer time in Kentucky is rarely mild in any sense.
I feel like I've lost my sense of adventure. This has been going on for some time now, and I've only noticed it in the last couple of years. I used to just fill a backpack, pick up, and go into the woods or the hills, without a care in the world where I exactly I was going or when I'd be back. Obviously, adult responsibilities have changed the way I think about the world, but even in my late 20s and early 30s, there still seemed to be room for adventure. My wife's sickness and passing away had a lot to do with subduing that part of my personality. It's been really difficult to get excited about anything over the last few years.
I've also lost touch with, for lack of a better word, my own "physicality." I used to enjoy physical work, working out, pushing myself, using my body, and the like, but these days, I shy away from such things. Even with studying tai chi and bagua, I often find myself rationalizing that I don't need to put a lot of effort into physical strength anymore. This is something I've really come to notice since moving back to Kentucky, where I've had ample opportunities to get tired and sweaty working outdoors.
Noticing these things, I've decided to turn my life around. I feel like I've made a lot of choices in the years since my wife died that perhaps weren't the best for me. Not bad choices per se, but things that haven been out of sync with my goals and values. More than anything, I've avoided things that I've needed to do. There were many opportunities to head to the woods that I didn't take, many opportunities to exercise or ride my bike or go to the gym. It is this seemingly less than ideal set of circumstances that I now find myself in that I realize that I have an enormous palette of opportunities before me to do just those things. I'm tired of letting my moods rule my choices, and beyond that, my life. We'll see where this takes me.
It rained again last night. I've seen some wet years in my time, but this has been one of the wettest in this part of the country in a long time. Rain has fallen most every day, usually in the late afternoon or evening. Strong storms came through to the south of here last night. Everywhere you can walk is wet; water squishes out under every single step - not a dry spot in wood, hil, or field. This is beginning to take its toll on local gardens. My parents' garden is doing well, though the corn is showing signs of succumbing to the general lack of sunshine an abundance of rain.
Continuing the thread of thought that has hooked into itself into since my return to Kentucky, it has been the decline of farming that has been largely responsible for the decline of this area. The mid-1980s were hard on family farms across the county, though the South was able to ride it out because of the federal government's price support system for tobacco, which was the main cash crop here. That ended with the dismantling of that government program in the early 1990s, largely due to pressure by anti-smoking groups and by advocates of free trade. Once tobacco was no longer profitable for local farmers, many smaller local family farms went fallow, and some of the medium-sized farms began to be parcelled out for real estate. The latter has been responsible for some of the real estate boom throughout central and eastern Kentucky in the late 1990s (that also included some of the less profitable horse farms around Lexington being converted into land for malls and suburban sprawl, but that is a topic for another entry).
The parcelling began in the early 1990s and never stopped, except perhaps last year, when real estate sales finally fit bottom. One particular stretch of local road, which was surrounded by hollows and forests, was parted out into dozens of small lots which sold for a couple of thousand dollars each, and this immediately created a situation in which dozens of people moved in mobile homes - some nice, some not - and no system of decent system of waste management. While this gave local people an opportunity for home ownership that they never had before, it also created traffic issues on the local roads, which are about 1 1/2 car width wide.
I've watched as property all around my parents' little farm - not quite five acres - has been sold and changed hands and divided again and again over the last 20 years. Neighbors come and go, and once productive farms become lots for houses. I can accept that Bath County has become a bedroom community for many people working in Montgomery, Clark, Fayette, and Rowan counties (all of which exist along the Interstate 64 corridor), but the disappearance of farms and a stable sense of community has been hard to take.
I understand the economic forces at work here. Much of what has happened has been out of local residents' hands, and planning and zoning are simply not a part of the way local government is conducted in this part of the country. Furthermore, there is barely any local economy to speak of, beyond the service sector : convenience stores, a few restaurants, and couple of dollar-type stores, a grocery store that's barely chugging along. Before all of these changes took place, I remember a growing local economy, based around not only farming but also around a handful of diverse small factories, a few department stores in town, computer repair, a few local banks, a truck stop, and attempts to capitalize on tourism around Cave Run Lake. Graduating from high school in 1989, I remember a sense of hopefulness about perhaps actually having a decent career and still being able to live in this area and raise a family. Now, all of that is gone, long gone.
Now, I can barely walk Max up the road without being genuinely concerned about getting hit by a car driving too fast. I no longer know most of the people living a scant three or four miles away west of here, nor do my parents. I have to drive twenty miles to get a bottle of cayenne pepper or to find a book for sale. And of course, there's no employment for me to speak of, except perhaps running illegal prescription drugs up from Florida, which seems to be a growth industry in these parts, or cooking crystal meth in the bathroom (the new moonshine - who'd have thought?)
It's not hard to come up with reasons to not be happy here.
An uneventful day. I was going to finish up with the weed trimming this afternoon, but there was a cloudburst that lasted for over an hour, giving us 1.2 inches of rain. People have been telling me that this area has been having droughts for the past several years, so maybe this summer trend will reverse itself. I napped for a good part of the afternoon. I've been reading a couple of different books, a compilation of Tony Hillerman's Navajo-based mysteries, Leaphorn and Chee, and Matthew Polly's American Shaolin, which is suprisingly good.
Still keeping an eye on the job front. There are a couple of professor's positions open for Fall 2010, one in West Virginia, the other in Minnesota. There's also a temporary career counselor's position open at a local workforce development office that I'm going to look into (that's kind of funny, when you think about it - temporary work as a career counselor....).
I can feel myself starting to finally relax into my surroundings. It has taken a while. As I've noted, so much of the area has changed, and there are more people living here, more traffic, and more noise. As I write this, a Dodge turbo-diesel pick-up truck with loud exhaust pipes is barreling down the road, one of many here; I don't understand how anyone can afford to drive one of those everyday, but life is full of such mysteries. But back to my point, I continue to find within myself a reluctance to relax completely; it's as if I'm waiting for something to happen, some sign, something, to let me know that things are okay. To my intellectual mind, things are manifestly NOT okay, but I'm accepting them, and they don't annoy me as much now. There's a deep sadness as well, seeing the empty storefronts, junky mobile homes, the lack of basic goods (at least basic to me) at existing local stores, the growing red-neck-ization of the population here. All of this took place while I was away, and I never saw it happening when I visited over the past few years. It's as big of a culture shock now as when I first moved to Amherst, perhaps more so, since I was expecting something, anything, of the familiar life I once lived. I know grief when I feel it.
In discussions with my buddy Tom, who has lived here his entire life, he told me that things began to take a noticeable downturn after 9/11 and have never been the same; the economy never quite got back on its feet, and now it has taken another hit.
I carry on. Live frugally, close to nature, close to God, and make it as best as I can. What else is there to do?
It's been a busy weekend. Saturday, I attended the Clack Mountain Festival for a few hours and got to see Hazel Holler, The Havens, Heather Berry, and Kentucky Wildhorse. The Tommy Wells Band came next, but I had had enough at that point. After Wells, the venerable Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys were going to close things out; at least I got to see his tour bus park. Here are some video highlights for you:
or here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScEhdz7rK
Sunday, I went to the Lawson family reunion at my aunt Martha and uncle Charles'. There were a good number of family members there, and of course, lots of good food to eat. I made BBQ'd ribs for the event, and they were quite popular - I think someone licked the pan clean. Mom made her delicious cornbread salad, and that went over well, too. 
That's about 7 pounds of ribs, almost done.
(I would've taken some pictures of the reunion, but it seemed pointless, given that almost all of my cousins had cameras flicking away; there'll be pictures at some point from them.)
My good friend Tom and I have taken up playing tennis again. Several years ago, he and I would head out to the courts early in the afternoon and play for up to seven or more hours, and over time, we both got pretty good at the basic strokes. We'd also invite other friends along and have impromptu tournaments. Tom has kept up his practice for longer than I have; I find myself very rusty, but it's still fun to be on the court again.
My mom and I have been keeping up the garden. Yesterday, we planted three more rows of corn (on top of two more), some hybrid tomatoes from a neighbor, cucumbers, and my personal favorite, okra. There is still half of the garden for planting. Potatoes, corn, and beans are growing and doing well. I am bracing myself for the inevitable onslaught of Colorado potato beetles and their hatchlings any time now.
Summer has arrived in Moore's Ferry. The last few days, the temperature has stayed in the mid-80s, and the humidity hangs over the hills, giving them a blue tinge in the afternoons. The sunlight stays fuzzy and overcast for most of the day. Today, the temperature peaked out at 88 degrees, and I found myself mowing the lawn with the pushmower and using the weedeater. Ouch. Nothing a nice cool shower couldn't take care of.
A lazy Saturday morning. Later on today, I'm preparing BBQed ribs on the grill for the Lawson family reunion tomorrow afternoon, and this evening I'm going to catch some of the music and crafts at the Clack Mountain Festival, in nearby Morehead.
A thought: body odor. Humanity has spent most of its history unbathed, without a lot of perfumes, and without shaving. Even until the European Middle Ages, most of humanity didn't take bathing seriously. Of course, we've had ritual reasons to cut and style hair, knock out teeth, pierce and tatoo, and the like, but none of that had anything to do with what we consider "cleanliness" these days. Suddenly, Modernity comes along, and we suddenly get obsessed with body odor and personal cleanliness. In my studies, I've come upon historical research and speculation that points to the birth of the modern concept of cleanliness in the northern European middle classes at the end of the Middle Ages; there was a general sense of disgust with body odors, bad breath, hair, and human waste products, and this became a social distinction between the newer urban middle classes and other social classes in Europe. After the Enlightenment, they were able to muster scientific reasons for this personal practice, and modern hygiene and the science of public health were born. Mind you, I have nothing against bathing, smelling good, or shaving, but it just seemed strange to me that for most of human history, those practices were not considered that important. Just a thought.
Last week, my buddy Tom called me and asked if I wanted to take a drive out to Broke Leg Falls, in neighboring Menifee County, near the Morgan County line. Sure, I said, why not? That kicked off our travel plans for the summer (and boy, do we have quite an itinerary, which you, precious readers, will discover over the course of the season).
As I understand it, Broke Leg Falls was at one time, perhaps back in the 1930s, planned as a local park and resort. Much of the concrete stairways and railings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which had a camp nearby. The centerpiece is the falls, a spectacular hundred or so foot drop from Broke Leg Creek, down into a wide basin. The area looks much like nearby Red River Gorge, though on a much smaller scale (for more views of the Gorge, check here for the amazing photography of John Snell). 
This is what you see when you first walk down into it, a rather unassuming creek flowing
through some flat boulders. 
But if you look just over the edge . . . 
The water has quite a ways to fall.
A wide canyon surrounds the falls on both sides of the falls, indicating millenia of erosion.
If you look closely, you can see a lovey-dovey couple in the lower left, just to give you a
sense of how wide it all is. 
One of the neater features at Broke Leg Falls is that you can walk under the falls themselves, a la' the movie Last of the Mohicans (1992). Tom tells me that because of the recent lack of rain, the falls themselves were not as spectacular as when he's been there in the past few years. 
Here is a view from the opposite side. 
A view from the lower canyon wall, looking up . . . glad we don't have to free hand climb to get out. 
And of course, Broke Leg Creek continues its merry way, on to Blackwater Creek, into Cave Run Lake, the Licking River, the Ohio River, the mighty Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico.
It's an easy place to find - just get on to US 460 through Menifee County, taking it all the way through to near the county line, and you'll see a sign for Broke Leg Fall on your left in a curve.
So the Census job is finally over today. I met with a few of my other co-workers at a local Cracker Barrel restaurant with our supervisors, turned in our badges and computers (as well as our time and mileage so we could get paid for showing up once more), and said our good-byes. Not hardly a sad moment, since I didn't know most of them that well. I guess I'm on the vacation known as unemployment again. At least now I have a fishing pole.
Over the holiday weekend, my folks decided it was time to replace the bathtub, since everyone would be home to work on it (such logic, I know). The only catch was that we had to remove a wall in an adjoining room to get the new unit in, which is a one piece stall with six-foot walls. Once the wall was down (a la' Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), we discovered pretty extensive termite damage. Dad and I, being the jack-of-all-trades that we are, dutifully went to work replacing and repairing as much of the damaged wood as we could, while Mom, mistress of chemical warfare in all things domestic, brewed up a nice cocktail for the termites. We finally got the tub installed and the water back on sometime Tuesday morning, and afterwards, Dad and I collapsed. Mom and Dad went back to their jobs yesterday, and I languished about the house and ran errands in the afternoon and hung out at the local coffee shop, being as literary as I could be.
Before we jumped into the plumbing and carpentry and insect removal business, the folks and I made the trip on Sunday afternoon to the Lawson family cemetery in nearby Menifee County, in an area known as Big Woods. Nowadays, there aren't too many woods around that area, just gawdy looking vacation cabins dotting the landscape. No one had attended to the cemetery this year; my aunt Berchie and uncle John usually stopped by around Memorial Day with their kids in tow to mow and clean it up, but sadly John passed away late last year. My folks and I made plans to come back and pick up limbs and mow around the stones. My father's parents, some of his uncles, and grandparents are buried there; the land used to belong to his grandfather, who owned several hundred acres in that area around the turn of the 20th century. This was the first time I had gotten to make the visit in ten years.
Summer weather is already here. By our local rain gauge, about 3 inches have fallen since Sunday, but it has been intermittent showers sharing the sky with the warm sunshine. In the evenings, the sky has been clearing off, revealing a bare fingernail sliver of a moon on the western horizon, around 10 PM; the remnants of sunset are still visible at that hour.
The Lakota Sioux name for the Badlands of South Dakota is pretty self-explanatory: Hep Sapa, "land . . . bad". I passed through there with my folks about three years ago, and they immediately reminded me of a local geographical feature in my own neck of the woods. The nearest town to me is Salt Lick, and it is named for places where animals, usually deer nowadays, and buffalo in the bygone era, would find mineral salts in the ground and feed on them by licking up the soil. This created a rough area in the ground where no grass grew, and rain carried away the topsoil more and more, making a small desert-looking spot. Where more and more topsoil gets washed away, they wind up looking something like this:
The area becomes more barren, and only pines and cedars can grow.
It creates a very neat effect in the landscape, and as a child, I always thought it was magical when I visited there. 
And this is what it looks like from the bottom.
This is the bottom where the dirt keeps washing away after rain storms. All of that mud is pocked with tracks and prints, mostly deer, but I also saw turkey prints as well. I actually came upon a flock of turkeys about thirty minutes after I took these pictures, but they were too swift for my camera. Maybe next time.
Here is a photo of the actual Badlands:
Yes, it was as dry and hot as it looked on that day.
There are a couple of other licks that I know of in the area, one much larger than this, and another smaller. The larger one is called Knobs Lick, occupies an entire hill top, and is about three miles away as the crow flies; the other is equally distant, but only a few square feet in size. This lick is within walking distance of my house. It's nice to have reminders that the world is not entirely centered around human purposes.
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