August Showers bring...Fairy Circles?

There's not a lot of "news" to pass along.  No snake sightings.  Life has settled into a routine.  This is more about the everyday observances that Neta and I encounter on our (mostly) daily walks when we take a break to get away from "the office".  There is always a new fire ant hill or three to take care of, or some pecan branches that have broken and fallen into the yard.

We usually walk Sammie around the perimeter of the yard once or twice a day.  If we notice something that we haven't before, we usually look it up when we get back inside.  Lately we've been encountering a lot of mushrooms.

I'd always pictured this part of Georgia that we're living in as dry and dusty farmland.  In all of our visits in the last 11 years, over many Christmases, Thanksgivings and summer family reunions, we'd only seen it rain a handful of times.  Since we've moved down here it has rained (showers) about 75% - 80% of the days we've been here.  Some have been quite heavy and flooded the yard, only to see it soak right in in less than an hour.  Others have just been spotty showers, enough to douse any ideas of starting or finishing mowing the lawn.

The last couple of weeks while the rain has slacked off to about 50% of the days, it has brought with it a bumper crop of mushrooms and even a couple of Fairy Circles.  Just a quick look out any of our windows and you can usually spot what looks like a golf ball from any view.

Here's a sampling (I did not look up the specific varieties):

NOTE:  For those of you who aren't aware, clicking on the pictures gives you a full size view.

Looks like a golf ball
from the window

Little Puffballs of some type

A different perspective

A different perspective

And this is the Fairy Ring in the yard beside the house.  There is another one further across the property, but it's not a fresh as this one and starting to turn brown.

A Fairy Ring

It's like Siamese Quintuplets!

And I didn't even get stung by a fire ant while taking this picture.

Neta's first post!

I'm finally writing an entry of my own, and the topic is laundry.  That's right: laundry.  I am woman, hear me roar.

What can I say...laundry is an important subject to me.  But this post is kinda sorta about home improvement.  Plus there are before-and-after shots, and who doesn't love those? 

Before we moved, we had these beauties:

The before, before shot.

High efficiency, front load washer and dryer.  Don't let the stacking fool you, these were full-size machines and I could get a ton of clothes in one load.  They had a million settings, they were fast and quiet and all around awesome.  But there was no way we were going to try to move these ourselves, so they had to convey with the house.  I consoled myself with the thought of the even more awesome set I'd buy once we built our new house.

But...we're living in a rental for the time being, and that rental didn't come with a washer and dryer.  We decided to just buy a used set that we could leave behind eventually (by this point you may be sensing that we weren't eager to move appliances, and you would be correct).  Our plan was to find a set via Craigslist right after we moved down, while we still had the moving truck and dolly.  That worked out really well except there was only one person selling a set when we were ready to buy, and that set was pretty rough looking.  But the issues were cosmetic and the price and timing were right, so we got them.

As you can see, it was quite the come down:

Before

Nasty before shot

The previous owner was a big fan of Spray & Wash, and she always held the stained piece of clothing over the open washer while she sprayed it.  Her aim left a bit to be desired, thereby teaching her (and me) a valuable lesson:  the stuff that is designed to get stains out of your clothes will also try its hardest to get the paint off of your washer.  I had no idea how strong stain remover could be, but it had bubbled the paint off of the inside lid and the top of the washer, allowing the metal underneath to begin rusting.

Now again, this didn't affect the washer mechanically, it just looked ugly as sin.  And I am a person who needs beauty in my life.  At first I thought I'd just get some appliance paint and touch up the bad areas, but then I decided to get a bit creative and have some fun with it.

Finally ready to paint.

First I had to get all the bubbly paint off.  I put a garbage bag inside the washer, tucked up under the inner rim to catch all the gunk.  Then I went at it with a paint stripper sponge, which is like a green dish scrubby on steroids.  It worked really well, but every time I thought I'd about gotten it all I'd find another bubbly spot.  Next I broke out the putty knife, which scraped off even more paint.  I wound up uncovering a lot more surface than I expected to - that Spray & Wash is powerful stuff!

 
I finally got all the softened paint scraped off and sanded smooth.  The trash bag inside the washer turned out to have been a brilliant move (she says modestly) because it caught all the gunk and was super easy to clean up.

Ewww

Shiny & clean!

After a couple of coats of white enamel it was beginning to look like a new washer again.

I knew I wanted something funky and colorful for the inside lid, but I was short on ideas.  Robert suggested I paint "RUN!" in drippy red letters, as a surprise for whoever moves in after us.  So tempting, but no.  Emily suggested I check Pinterest for ideas, which I did.  Big mistake:  nothing else got done in my life for the next week.  I still didn't find anything that really struck my fancy but it did spark an idea.  Amazon to the rescue with some vinyl wall stickers!  I let the enamel dry for a few days before applying, and then I let my inner artist out.

My inner artist doesn't get out much.

I love it, especially because with the lid closed it just looks like any other boring white washer.  While I'm really looking forward to having a fancy new set, I'm pretty tickled with my fun, like-new washer.

When was my last tetanus shot?

Where are my sunglasses?

The obligatory side-by-side shot.

Primal Fear

So I haven't blogged about snakes in a while, so here is a fix for those of you fascinated by our "Croc Hunter"-like lives.

WARNING - The following text will contain information about snakes and a picture of the latest snake.  Also, if you are a member of PETA, you may not want to read about how we deal with venomous snakes going forward.

Last week, while Neta was in Raleigh, I found a large copperhead in the yard.  I almost stepped on it.  Sammie (our dog) was out in the fenced in area we made for her.  I decided to go out and play with her.  I walked down the steps of our side porch, called her to come play and looked down.  There was a copperhead  about a foot from me.  He was completely unconcerned...but I was.  I now had to corral a dog that was in "play mode".  She playfully ran right in between us.  The snake flinched, but otherwise still didn't care.  I managed to grab Sammie and as I was leading her into the house, the snake began to move away.  When I went back outside, he was gone.  He lives to fight another day.

Then two days ago, Sammie was barking at something out in the yard.  Neta went out and saw a snake.  She opened the door and Sammie came running with her tail between her legs.  FINALLY!  The dog saw a snake and understood the danger.  I grabbed the hoe from Neta, but upon arriving on scene saw that it was a rat snake, and harmless.  I pinned his head to the ground so I could pick him up and relocated him to the field next door.  Non-venomous snakes get relocated, not killed.

Last night was a different situation altogether.  Robert came in from walking Sammie around 11:30.  He said there was a "big, thick" snake in the front yard.  I heard those words and immediately thought "rattlesnake".  I was right.

It was a Timber Rattler.  This brought Neta and Emily out to cheer from the safety of the front porch.  Cheering is somewhat of a misnomer.  It was more of a constant, insistent shouting of caution (like I needed to be told that) in many different forms.

I approached him with the shovel.  He looked just as he does in that picture above, just stretched out, without a care in the world.  I struck him with the shovel, but it was only a glancing blow.  He turned towards me and started to rattle.  If you've never heard that sound before in person, upon hearing it, you will immediately know that danger is near.  The reptilian part of the brain just knows that something is seriously wrong.  It sent a chill up my spine.  I am not going to lie...I WAS SCARED.

Without going into too much detail about the battle, let me just say that he coiled up to strike at one point.  That adds another layer to the danger that you feel.  Now he's not only mad, he's in "KILL MODE".

I stayed a safe distance and managed to land the decisive blow.  Immediately the rattle stopped and I knew he was dead.  I made sure he was dead with a few pokes of the hoe.  We measured him at 50 inches.  Much bigger than the last one that we saw a few weeks ago.  I carried him over, with the end of the hoe, and deposited him in the edge of the woods.

The adventures continue...

In case you were wondering about us

Some of you have been wondering and asking how we are doing, what's life like down here, have you seen any more snakes recently and stuff like that.  I'll do my best to bring you up to speed on all of that and maybe a bit more.  So let's get started...

What do Neta and I do as it pertains to working remotely?

I work as a Web Developer for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer of the DC Government.  I won't get into the specifics of the system I use (Drupal) and all that, but basically I help them keep all of their websites (supporting 104 separate offices) working.  I'm an independent contractor, but I contract via a company called Confluence (in DC).

Neta is a Project Manager for RelevantCRM based out of Raleigh, NC. She manages CRM (don't ask me to explain it, just read the Wikipedia entry) implementation and customization projects for heavy equipment/material handling and office equipment companies.  Since she just started in early July, parts of her first weeks have been spent in Raleigh getting up to speed on her job, but soon she'll be mostly working from home with occasional trips to client sites around the U.S.

Do we really love living in Georgia?

Yes!

What do we really enjoy about living down here?

The peace and quiet.  Our closest neighbor is down the road and around the corner about 3/4 of a mile or so.  We're in the middle of farm land, with cotton fields in front and in back of us.

The (panoramic) view from our front porch

This is the (panoramic, again) view from our back fence.

Cotton flower (with a
closed red one to the left)

Cotton flower

The people.  I could write an entire post just about the nice people we've encountered.  Most people that we have met have usually been in the course of doing business; cashiers, wait staff, customer service people on the phone, etc.  Just yesterday, in the local donut shop, a lady standing behind us in line started talking to us, recommending different items.  After she left, she came back in and handed us her business card for a local dental office.  Interestingly enough, Neta had just called them the day before.  We mentioned we were new in town and that Emily and Robert were looking for jobs, she wrote ours and their names down and said she'd let us know if she heard anything.

One more thing that we love down here: the lack of traffic.  If you see three or four cars in a row on the road...that's "traffic".  While there is a "bypass" around Statesboro, there is no Beltway.

Is there anything we've had to "get used to"?

Yes.  Selection at the grocery store.  Certain items that we took for granted aren't readily available down here unless you head to the "big city" and go to Publix.  We miss Trader Joe's.

The (sustained) heat.  It's been over 90 every single day since we got here, with most days in the mid to upper 90's, and will probably stay that way through most of August.  Though the last couple of days the humidity has been much lower and the evenings have been pleasant.

The gnats.  No matter how fast you walk, or how fast the riding lawn mower goes, they seem to remain "in orbit" around your face and head.

40% of the "county" roads are unpaved.  The road grader comes by periodically to scrape the road down and smooth it out.  Our current rental house is on a dirt road and our farm (the one we'll be buying) is on one as well.

What's the place that we're renting like?

We are renting a 3100 sqft. one-story rancher on about 5 acres.  We have really come to love it.  The family/TV room is at one end and the bedrooms (4)/bathrooms (2) are at the other.  In between there is the kitchen, dining room, and large living room that I use for my office.  There is also a large bonus room on the back of the house with windows all the way around.  There is also a two-car carport off of the family room.  Carports are a necessity in the south, in case you were wondering.

The property itself is really nice.  In the front there is a huge red oak tree (surrounded by very tall azaleas) that shades most of the front of the house in the morning.  Out near the road are a few pine trees and a pecan tree with more azaleas in spots around the driveway entrances.

I think I've used this picture before, but for the sake of this blog entry, it bears repeating.

The property stretches about 250 feet or so behind the house down to the cotton fields that I mentioned previously.

The right side of the backyard

The left side of the backyard.

 There are about 25 or more pecan trees on the property (Come and get some pecans this fall!).

PECANS!  GET 'CHA PECANS HERE!

There is also a very overburdened pear tree, three very long grape vines (scuppernong), a couple of fig trees (Celeste figs, we think), several camellia bushes (which are huge and must be very old) and a few dogwoods round out the lot.

How many more pears can it hold on those bending branches?

Scuppernong - A grape I have no love for

The Celeste fig tree.

It's a Celeste as best as I can identify it.

The camellias (with some stray dogwoods thrown in)

Have we seen any more snakes recently?

Yes, but no other venomous snakes.  Last Sunday, Neta started to walk out the door and nearly stepped on a small rat snake.  On Friday, while cutting grass, I saw another rat snake down at the very back edge of the yard.  He was about a three footer.

How has the weather been since moving down here?

Aside from the aforementioned heat, we have gotten a lot of thunderstorms and rain showers.  I guess that's par for the course, but we imagined it a bit drier this time of year.  We feel as though we're living in Florida sometimes.

Any other critters besides snakes and turtles?

We do see a rabbit or two every now and then, and I did scare a bunny out of a bed of flowers one day.  There are deer across the field that we see from time to time.  We put up a hummingbird feeder the second day we were here and have had a male and two females (Ruby-Throated) ever since.  There are other birds common to most of us: Cardinals, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers (Red-Bellied), Mockingbirds, Wrens, etc.  Along the edge of the woods you'll see Brown Thrashers and in the edge of the fields and once in the yard I've seen a Bluebird.  We saw a hawk dive into the cotton field one day and eat something, but we couldn't see what it was.  We also see White Ibis flying over from time to time.  And of course, on a daily basis we see the tree frogs and toads.

Are you ever going to end this blog entry or don't you know when to quit?

Point taken.

Sigh of Relief

As we detailed in the first post, and updated in the second, we can now, finally provide the final update on the sale of our house in Virginia.  It is sold...as of yesterday, July 16th.  WHEW!  There were days we didn't think it would happen.  After such a short time on the market and accepting an offer after 4 days, to the joy-crushing news that the buyer's financing fell through, to coming back up to cloud...well...maybe cloud 4 and 1/4 or 5 (certainly not cloud 9) after finding out they'd gotten new financing, to the final word from out realtor that the deal was done, it was quite a roller-coaster ride.

Not our actual house or sign.

Our closing was originally scheduled for either July 7th or 8th, but we got word that it wasn't going to happen then.  We blew past those dates with little word.  After some prodding of the realtor on Tuesday, she informed us that our closing was scheduled for this Thursday (the 16th).  Neta happened to be in Raleigh, NC for her work and wasn't scheduled to come back until Thursday night, so that rearranged her schedule.  We also had to scramble to find a notary public to verify our signatures since we were doing all of this remotely.

A quick check of the surrounding area didn't reveal much except the UPS store.  That didn't sound like the best option as there were about 25 pages to sign and we'd have to fax the copies in for verification that we got it all correct before we Fedex'd in the originals.  I made some calls then finally came up with the idea to use the lawyer that has been doing some work for us as it pertains to buying the farm.  The people in her office said it would be no problem.  We made an appointment for Thursday morning.

On Thursday we got the papers signed, the lawyer scanned them and emailed them off for us.  The title company in VA had one minor change to make, which we fixed.  I then headed to the Fedex facility, about 25 or more miles away in a tiny little town that, according to my father-in-law, may not even register as a town.  Coincidentally, the town is called Register.

I plugged the address into my GPS and off I went.  When you turn off the interstate, Register isn't even listed as a town to which any road sign points you.  Statesboro, sure.  Claxton, yes.  Back to Savannah, absolutely.  No Register.  Regardless, I had a street address.  I drove about 5 miles once I got off the interstate only to have the GPS have me do a U-turn and instruct me to go another 5 miles back in the direction I'd just come from.  Luckly, I was paying attention.  About halfway back to the interstate I saw the Fedex sign.  Of course I could have turned from the highway directly into that little dirt road from my original direction.

Not actually Craig and Neta, but the reaction was
pretty much the same.

The building was down a rutted, dirt road and the building did not look like a "full-service" Fedex facility, but happily I discovered it was.  I dropped off the overnight package, smiling as I returned to my car, knowing that our paperwork was on its way to the final steps of house-selling.

Later that day we got the call from our realtor - "Congratulations! You've sold your house!"  What a relief getting that call was to us.

So now Phase Two (or Three?), which originally was supposed to be Phase One, is complete.  We h ave remote jobs, we're in GA and our house in VA has been sold.  Yeah...I guess that's three phases.  So now we work on Phase Four, buying the farm.  We hope to be able to share that news in the next month or so.

This time it wasn't frogs...

I've stared death in the eye plenty of times, but usually it was in the form of something that was going to attack my arteries like a bacon cheeseburger or an extra slice of all the meats pizza or a 3rd (maybe 4th) helping of mac and cheese.  Each time I have walked away the victor.  Last night was no different.

It was around 11pm or so and Robert had just taken Sammie (our dog) for their nightly walk in the front yard.  They hadn't been outside for more than just a few seconds when he came back in yelling for us to come outside quick because there was a snake in the yard.  He seemed more excited than scared.

I immediately armed myself with the most important thing I could grab...my phone...for its camera.

Usually Robert and Sammie encounter frogs when they walk out the door, so this was a step up on the excitement meter.  I was expecting another rat snake or something like that.  And at first glance, that's what I thought it was, but as I inched closer - not too close, I'm no dummy - I noticed that he was a bit thicker than a rat snake or other garden variety snakes that I've seen before.  It was at this point that I "speculated" that he was a rattlesnake.  I inched closer still.

I had the flashlight in one hand and my phone in the other.  At one point, being the daredevil that I am, I tucked the flashlight under my chin so I could hold the camera phone with both hands.  The outside lights already lit the front yard up enough so I could see the snake reasonably well, but I couldn't make out if there was a rattle on his tail or not.  Even shining the flashlight on it wasn't enough.  Robert took the flashlight as I continued to close in to make an accurate ID.

Keep in mind that when I say I was getting closer, I was still 7 or 8 feet away still.  The snake stayed still.  He didn't seem interested in me and wasn't rattling its tail, just sort of sitting there, assessing things.  I don't remember if I got a little closer or he moved his tail just enough that I could see a stubby rattle on it.

VICTORY!  I'd seen and identified him as a "rattlesnake".  For me this was a first.  I'd never seen a rattlesnake in person outside of a zoo.

My first rattlesnake, a Timber Rattler

He eventually turned around and slithered into a large group of azaleas that circle an oak tree in the front yard.  Yes, you read that correctly if you read, "Craig and Robert fought off the mighty snake and sent him cowering back into the bushes."

The coward running away

So ends my first "venomous" snake adventure.  I'm sure there will be more as life in Georgia is like living in Australia.  Almost everything down here can kill you, from the gators and snakes to the moonshine.  Stay tuned...

Sunsets and Frogs

One thing I appreciate living down here, specifically at this place, is the sunsets that we have been treated to most evenings.  We've had our share of storms and rainy weather almost everyday, but most evenings it breaks up in time to give us a beautiful sky of reds, blues, oranges and grays.

For the last 8 or so years we lived in the "Vienna Woods" area of Vienna, and while it was no Black Forest, we were surrounded by a lot of tall oaks, poplars and maples.  Sunsets were heavily filtered through the trees.  Down here, we have open cotton fields to the front and back of us.  If we think of it, Neta and I step out onto the front porch, relax on one of our old gliders and watch the sun set and see the sky turn colors.  Here's a sampling of what we get to see.

Another by-product of the storms are the tree frogs that we get.  Usually each night when Robert takes the dog for a walk, the door and side of the house has several hanging around.  The other day Robert found this one, on our step ladder that is leaning on the side of the house.

 He spent several days there.  Today he moved and was no longer there, but we think we may know where he went.

Neta and I took a drive into Statesboro today to pick up some things from the grocery store.  I just wanted to get out of the house for a bit.  After relaxing this weekend, not going anywhere and then spending all day working from home today, I was ready to see something besides the inside of the house and this yard.

We'd just turned onto Highway 67 and were talking about the day.  We hadn't gone more than a mile when out of the blue, Neta began screaming.  As the driver of the car, needless to say, I found this very jarring.  I immediately thought she'd been stung or bitten by something.  At the very least it seemed to be an aggressive attack.

By the time my heartbeat returned to normal and I'd steered the car back from the ditch on the other side of the road, I managed to see what she was screaming about.  She had quickly turned away from the passenger's side window, but after a few seconds realized what it was and began to return to sanity.  While neither of us got a picture, it looked something like the frog to the right.  The poor little fella must have climbed up the door as we were going down the road and made his way to the window.  I think he was signaling her to let him in as the 55 mph winds were not kind.

Before I could do the humane thing and slow down and pull over, the wind took him and he was gone.  I am sure that the frog took years off of our lives.  Though, in all fairness, it wasn't the frog but Neta's shrieks that did the damage to me.

Now Neta isn't normally afraid of frogs, but to hear her tell this tale, the frog looked more like this: