January 11, 2018
We are back in Laurel Fork and the thought foremost in my mind is how
wonderful it feels to not be cold. Last
week was so reminiscent of my days in Alaska.
The temperatures, of course, did not compare to the 50-60 below zero we
had there during a cold snap, but the cold that radiated from the walls and
windows and the winds that drove the cold into our poorly insulated farm house
sure did remind me of those days. Today
it was in the 50’s and raining and it just felt so good not to have that
debilitating cold. I finally got the
Christmas tree down today. I always
leave my tree up until after Epiphany but because we had that whole section of
the house blocked off as we tried to keep the rest of the house warm, the tree
sat untouched until we returned to Laurel Fork this week. With it being warmer outside and comfortable
inside, I was able to tolerate the closed off portion of the house and get the
ornaments put away. (I had already taken
down all the other decorations in the rest of the house.) Mike worked inside the barn as it was much to
nasty to be trying to do anything outside.
The ground was just saturated, soft and slimy. Anywhere we didn’t stay on gravel, cement, or
blacktop, we simply slid or sunk into the mess.
There’s a huge, attached shed on the back of the barn and it has a long,
wooden, feeding trough in it that needs repair.
We decided to take down the back section of the trough so that the
cattle can have a lounging area in inclement weather and so that we can get a
loader in there to clean it out. It was
a quiet day and a day to get down to the nuts and bolts of all the little
things that need to be done. Monday,
Tuesday and half of Wednesday were busy days as we were in Staunton to catch up
on things there. Mike always has things
to do around the farm (home place in Verona where his mom lives and where his
nephew is leasing now). When in Staunton
Mike still eats breakfast with his mom, helps her around the place with
anything she might need, helps Matt feed the cattle, catches up on delivering
hay to customers, often helps Gabino cut wood so that we have wood for the
outdoor boiler that heats our house in Staunton, works on equipment (this week
it was brakes on one of the farm trucks), runs errands, and such. The winter routine is slower but still
busy. (In the summer he is busy making
hay and tending to the garden as well.)
Monday was the first day of Alissa’s new schedule which keeps her away
from home for about 14 hours. The girls
were really good for me and Rory did well.
She is much easier to keep now that she is walking and able to eat and
drink well rather than just relying on nursing.
(Neither of Alissa’s girls would take bottles hardly at all. Instead, they would just scream from hunger
and wait for momma to get home to nurse them, which meant a long day for me as
their caretaker.) I think they both
really missed Mike and I while we were away from them for two weeks. Their
being happy to have us home was part of the reason they were fairly content
Monday with Alissa being gone. Tuesday,
I spent half a day at the Antique Mall in Verona working on rearranging the
booth and taking inventory. I anticipate
needing another two, full afternoons to complete the inventory in that
store. Sales have been really slow the
last of December and first of January, but they were slow last year at this
time as well. Alissa goes in to class
later on Tuesday evenings than she did last semester which is good and
bad. I had enough time to get supper
made before she left which made it a little easier on me but it means she gets
home later. After supper and baths, I
took the girls downstairs to play where they could interact with Mike as well
as he watched a ball game on television.
Wednesday morning I packed another load of things to carry with us back
to Laurel Fork and I caught up on the paperwork that had been sitting in
Staunton waiting on me over Christmas.
Gabino was late getting to the house to watch the girls because he was
helping Mike. Alissa had to leave to teach her classes at Blue Ridge Community
College, so I watched the girls for a while until they got back. The girls played well and I was able to get
the downstairs swept and mopped. Rory
likes to chase me around as I sweep and mop, so it’s always a circus, but the
floors were at least a little cleaner.
With all of us in and out so much, keeping the floors up is almost
impossible and with a baby who likes to put everything in her mouth, it
provides a real challenge. I think we
finally got out the door around two on Wednesday. That last few minutes when we are trying to
get everything packed up and remember to take everything we need is always the
worst time of the week for us as far as our attitudes are concerned. It seems Mike and I inevitably snap and fuss
at each other the whole time. Trying to
stay organized and keep up with two different places that are almost three
hours apart in distance can be a real challenge. It never fails though, once we get in that
truck and head down the road we are able to get over whatever we have been
fussing about, release the stress and usually get a laugh out of our
stupidity. Maybe someday we will finally
learn to just roll with the stress and stop biting each other’s heads off as the
days in Staunton come to a head and we prepare to travel south. The traffic on Interstate 81 was as nasty as
usual on a late Wednesday afternoon and we had not been on the road more than a
few minutes when I realized I was absolutely starving. I am so busy when we are in Staunton, that I
don’t stop to eat breakfast or lunch and typically just eat the evening meal. I
had not had a bite to eat all day and had only had two meals in the last 72
hours. We stopped to eat when we got to
Lexington. I inhaled my food! We got to the house after dark. We were hauling a very long cattle
trailer. Mike had some supplies in it
for the barn and he wanted to park it as close as he could to the house rather
than leave it down along the road. We
have a narrow bridge that goes over a lively stream right as you turn into our
driveway and getting the truck and trailer in is not an easy task. I stood in the dark and watched the trailer
as Mike pulled in the driveway. We had
to start over a couple of times and I was a nervous wreck thinking that the
tires would slide off the edge of the narrow bridge, but we made it over, and
up the drive so that we didn’t have to carry everything so far. We unloaded the truck and settled in for the
night. Every night I call my grandmother
to check on her and to talk to her.
Getting through to her can be a real challenge because she doesn’t
always hear the phone. We have a system
where if she has not heard from me by a certain time, then she calls me. This works well when I am in Staunton with
good cell phone service, but it can be a challenge when I am in Laurel
Fork. Often, calls do not even come
through and when they do, there is only one spot in the house where I can talk
and I have to stand very still so that I don’t lose the call. I never fail to get in touch with grandma one
way or the other though. It is an
important part of her routine and she depends on my calls and panics if she
thinks she can’t get in touch with me.
It is a way for me to know that she is ok before she heads for bed. In the event I can’t get in touch with her, I
can call someone local who can go by and check on her. It is also a way for me to see how her day
has gone. Some days go really well for
her but a lot of days she gets confused about things. She likes to go to McDonalds on Tuesday and
Saturday mornings with my cousin who sits with her. Many days now she gets confused and will be
up well before dawn and ready to go to McDonalds on days that they are not schedule
to go. My cousin, Lou, is so good to try
to make my grandma feel comfortable and she will often go ahead and take her
even on those days. Being a pastor’s
wife for fifty years, church has always been a major focus for my grandmother,
and she worries about getting ready for church in time and will often get up at
3 or 4 am and get ready on Sunday mornings.
She told me this week that she called her pastor’s wife and asked her if
they forgot her because she had been ready for so long and they never arrived
to pick her up. It was not a Sunday and
my grandmother was just confused about the day.
My calls to her each evening give me an opportunity to hear from my
grandmother about her day and to witness her frame of mind. Some days I can tell that the anxiety is
greater. I know that as she struggles to
remember things, she is aware that she is struggling, and this only makes it
worse. We want her to be able to be
comfortable and keep her routine as long as possible. It is so important to her to be able to
remain at home, but it makes it a challenge for us to make sure that her needs
are met. This is why I make frequent
trips to check on her and keep her affairs in order as well as call her each
night. My brother checks in on her
multiple times a week and my cousin is there with her during the day except on
“church days” when her pastor and his wife are checking in on her and taking
her to church with them. We are working
on possible funding from the Veteran’s Administration to provide her with an
additional care giver for some afternoon and evening hours as well. Grandma gets upset and agitated if memory
issues are mentioned and on one hand often tells people that “Tammy thinks I
have dementia but I don’t”. She will
turn around and tell them that she is unable to handle her business affairs
anymore and that “Tammy handles all my business. It’s nice to have your own bookkeeper.” I don’t often write here in my journal of all
the difficulties we face in caring for an elderly family member. Because there are a number of people who feel
a personal connection with my grandparents who were mentors, surrogate parents,
and adoptive grandparents to so many people over the years, there are those who
feel they must try to step in and take over when they don’t really understand
the full picture. It’s hard for those
who only see a part of the picture to understand all the dynamics, and our
family has suffered from interference of those who evidently thought they were
helping but in fact were making certain situations more difficult for us. Sometimes, I feel very strongly the pull of
being in the middle with trying so hard to take care of the grandchildren who
are three hours to the north of us and trying to take care of my grandmother
who is almost six hours south of us.
Both generations are a blessing and I am tremendously thankful to be
able to give of myself in both situations.
I also get tired. I’m only
human. I also often miss my mother, in a
very selfish way, even after all these years. (I was seven when she passed
away.) My mother was an only child and my brother and I her only children. That leaves us to look after my grandmother
and while I am thankful for that opportunity, I often wonder what it would be
like of my mother were here to guide me and show me the way.
January 12, 2018
I’m truly thankful that the folks who built our farmhouse put it on a
bank ABOVE the creek rather than sitting down next to the water like so many of
the old farmhouses I see in this area.
These hills are full of springs and streams and many of the old homes,
including ours, get their water through the use of a gravity feed system
directly from the springs. I believe
easy access to water is why so many of the homes were built on lower ground,
coupled with the fact of easy access from the roads which at one time in the
not too distant past were little more than one lane, gravel paths. Our home is definitely “in the holler” and a
huge ravine sits to the side of the house that can become quite a stream when
the conditions are right. In the front
of the house two, spring fed streams come together to form Roades Creek. Our home sits on a knoll up above the creek
where we can hear the sounds of the water and the frogs in the summer when the
windows are open. This morning, that
stream is rushing full force as all the water meets and swirls after a night of
heavy rains. Had all this moisture met
the cold from last week, we would be digging out from under a snow storm but
with the temps in the 50’s this week, we are getting rain instead. I brought a pile of papers with me to
organize and file and today will be a good day to work indoors. Of course, the rain always reminds me of my
Josh who would never miss an opportunity to walk in the rain. His presence is always near but rainy days
bring back precious memories of my special child.
January 13, 2018
Yesterday it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. We had well over an inch of rain as we went
into the evening and it continued raining well into the night. We could hear the creek rushing even with the
windows closed and the competing noise from inside the house. The temperature began to drop as night fell
and the winds continued to gust as they had been doing all day. Several times the power flickered and I
wondered if we would end up using the generator that I insisted we have. We did not lose power and sometime in the
night, the rain ended. In the upper 50’s
yesterday, the temperatures have fallen into the twenties overnight, the wind
is gusting up to 40+ miles an hour with wind chills below zero, and we are
under a winter weather advisory as all that moisture is now frozen into ice on
the roads. Yesterday was the first day
that I felt a twinge of seasonal depression that I struggle with each
winter. I kept busy and tried not to
give into the winter doldrums. I was
able to get a lot accomplished around the house and Mike worked inside the
barn. It’s nice that he is able to have
a dry place to work and he seems to enjoy the process. We have been somewhat relaxed about the whole
process but are starting now to feel the urgency of getting things done. The winter will go by quickly and we really
want to be able to move the animals by summer.
I’m really trying to use up some of the preserved food that we have had
around for a while. We have had so much
excess in the last few years that the freezers are full of fruit, some of which
is four years old. The quality of frozen
food is so greatly diminished even within just six months. The only thing that kept any of this fruit
even edible is the fact that a lot of it was vacuum sealed. I do run across some that wasn’t vacuum
sealed and if it’s too old, I just have to throw it out because it is beyond
edible. I came across a bag of
blueberries while digging for fruit and made a cobbler with them in my iron
skillet. It was so good and our grass
finished burgers tasted especially good last night as well. We also had corn that I had cut off the cob
and frozen back in the summer.
January 14, 2018
We twist and weave our way along the back roads between our place and
Christiansburg where we catch the interstate.
The first thirty minutes of the trip I look intently out the window,
taking in the details, recognizing what is fast becoming familiar, as well as
adding new details to memory. Since I
was but a child, I have had a habit of staring at houses with curiosity. It’s not the houses themselves that intrigue
me, although I do love the architecture; it’s the stories that are told within
the walls. Even as a very young child, I
would look at the lights shining from the windows at night from various homes we
passed, and wonder about the people inside.
So many of the houses we pass in the economically depressed areas of
Southwest Virginia are abandoned. Others
look like they should be abandoned, but are in fact, inhabited by folks
obviously just trying hard to hang on.
In my own way, I attempt a form of necromancy. Of course, I don’t actually attempt to
“contact the dead”, but in my head, I try to experience the spirit of the
people who once lived in these mountain homes.
The abandoned buildings are clues that help me to conjure up a bit of
the past. I’ve read books about the
area and scrounged for information online.
I’ve read some historic documents about the people who settled this
place, and I see remnants of their spirit in those descendants who remain. In
researching Carroll, Floyd, and some of the surrounding Southwest Virginia
counties, I have found the fortitude, determination, individualism, independent
spirit, and devotion to family that defines so many of the individuals that
once lived in the area reminds me of my own Northwest Georgia Mountain
heritage.
January 15, 2018
We have rolled around to another Monday. I have been up since 5 am. In Staunton, the house is heated only with
wood by an outdoor boiler and with the temperature at only six degrees this
morning and a house full of adults who use a lot of hot water (also heated only
with wood), the first one up must tend to the fire. I was hoping to sneak buy and not have to go
out in the cold to tend to the furnace, but when I got in the shower and the water
was cold, I knew I was out of luck. I
raked the coals to bring life to the dying embers and found a few small pieces
of wood that would burn quickly, laying them in a pattern that would encourage
them to burn quickly. I looked for some
small logs I thought would burn well and placed them over the smaller pieces of
wood, shut the door to the furnace and made my way inside the house where I
waited about a half an hour before heading back out to make sure the furnace
was burning properly. There was a nice
fire burning and while I was out, I added more wood and then settled down with
a cup of hot coffee and my computer to wait for the rest of the house to
stir. Alissa will soon be headed off to
work at Blue Ridge Community College and the Little Girls will be awake and
ready for adventure. Today will be a short day of only nine hours
of babysitting as Alissa’s classes at James Madison University have been
cancelled tonight in honor of Martin Luther King Day. It is Gabino’s birthday, so we will all be
here to celebrate with him, which will be nice.
As we start a new week, even with the cold and the short winter days, I
can’t help but recognize my blessings.