Mountain Man

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Well folks, Lynne and I have been back in the Good Ole US of A for just a brief period of time now and we both have a feeling of peace we have never experienced before. It’s almost magical.

We are spending some time with Lynne’s sister, Anna, and brother-in-law, Larry on a mountaintop in Tennessee. It is really beautiful up here. Green Trees—yes, I said Green Trees. And get this—they are everywhere. It’s good not to have to look at desert all day long. No, I take that back. It is freaking awesome not to have to look at desert all day long.

Most of the green of the mountains is from the variety of different pines in the mountains. Many of the mountain facades are still showing their winter brown color. All of the deciduous hardwoods have shed their leaves for the winter and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring. Although Spring officially begins tonight, it will come naturally here on the mountain. There are signs of the vast variety of trees and shrubs just waking from their winter slumber. Some of the maples, dogwoods, Bradford pear, and other plants are beginning to sprout new life as buds begin to emerge from the barren branches. Other will begin their spring rejuvenation in just a brief time. Spring is close at hand. Just yesterday I saw a couple of cardinals strutting their magnificent red colors as if on parade. They were joined at the bird feeders by a large variety of other birds to include some gold finches, blue bird and even a dove. I’m excited with spring in the mountains and the fresh display of new life. It is rather symbolic to the new life flowing in our hearts at the moment.

Larry and Anna have a nice plot of land (forty acres) in the Tennessee Mountains outside of Knoxville. The mountain is close to the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains. From their house you can see the rolling mountains in the distance. Peak after peak reveals itself until they fade away in the distance. There is the ever presence of the “smoky” appearance to the mountains in the distance. This is primarily due the evaporation of the moisture found in the abundance of trees blanketing these wonderful mountains.

On Monday morning, I woke up and went down the mountain to help Larry, Lynne’s brother in-law clear the north forty. Well, OK it wasn’t really the north forty, but we did clear a good little section of the woods. For those of you who may have no idea what I’m talking about, let me give you a few details. This would be a good time to grab a cup of hot cocoa and settle in for a good read.

First let me tell you that Larry is 69 years old and fit as a fiddle. He rolled out bright and early while I was still nursing my first cup of coffee for the morning. He hooked his chipper up to the truck and rolled on down the gravel drive. After finishing my coffee and grabbing a quick bowl of cereal, I headed on down the road. It was really spectacular walking down the mountain road to link up with Larry. There is a certain peace with walking in the mountains that puts me in my happy place. I guess I had hiked about a quarter of a mile before I heard the distinct roar of the chipper in action.

Larry had previously cut a bunch of pine trees from the land and had them stacked and ready to chip. He had already started chipping before I arrived. Larry shut down the chipper when I arrived and gave me a complete safety briefing on our chipping operation for the day. We fired the chipper back up and began feeding the pines into the chipper. Most of them were no more than an inch in diameter, but several of them were huge. I had my doubts that the chipper could handle them but was quickly amazed with how it just ate them up.

After chipping up the existing pile of tress, we headed into the woods and began clearing the next section. So, what in the heck am I talking about clearing the woods? The natural process of growth allows the pine trees to rapidly take over the woods. The pines begin to take over and choke out some of the more beautiful trees and shrubs. When you clear the woods, it gives these other trees the opportunity to thrive. As we were cutting back some of the pines, Larry was pointing out all of the trees he wanted to save. I learned to recognize, the maples, sweet birch, hemlocks, sassafras, thin oak and other plants such as mountain laurel, rhododendron and wild azaleas. These were all keepers. Some of these were small like saplings, but we were able to cut around them and save them. Larry pointed out three different type of pines we would be cutting to the ground. We did find some black gum trees that we put on the cut list as well. Now I consider myself an outdoors type guy, but now I was getting some great lesson in tree and plant identification. This was pretty cool. Larry really knows a lot about plant and trees on his property.

I was really disappointed that he did not have any hickory trees on his property. I was really looking forward to finding a hickory stick. I was also looking forward to symbolically feeding the hickory stick into the chipper.

Here is something that I really marveled at. Now Larry is 24 years older than I am and he was absolutely running circles around me when it came to this type of manual labor. I kept waiting for Larry to take a break, but he just kept on going like the Energizer Bunny. In no time at all we had three more piles ready for the chipper. Now it was time for a break. Lynne and Anna soon drove down the road with lunch and we took a much-deserved break.

After lunch, I couldn’t find my earplugs. I needed them for the noise of the chipper. I had to make some by stripping the filters from a couple of cigarettes. Ha, I finally found a benefit of smoking. We fired the chipper back up and in no time had all three piles fed through the chipper. We cleaned up and headed back to the house.

I joked around with Larry about this being my first work for stay project and he reminded me that he wasn’t running a work for stay program. The manual labor did me a world of good. I felt eager to be able to get out and clear some more of the woods with Larry. As luck would have it, Tuesday was a very windy day on the mountain. The winds rolled in Monday evening and picked up during the day. Working in the woods on Tuesday was out of the question. Lynne and I ceased the opportunity to run into town and she had her eyes checked in the process. We stopped by the Super Wal-Mart to pick up a few essentials and headed back to the house for a home cooked meal of fried chicken. Earlier in the day, Larry got out his hand-held anemometer (wind speed meter). He clocked the winds at 28.8 MPH but it sure seemed like it was much stronger.

This morning (Wednesday) we awoke to the news of an impending storm heading our way. As I write this, it is raining heavily and the winds are really kicking up. The weather has given Lynne and I an opportunity to do a little more research on our world-tour and time to do a little more planning. As it would turn out, the more research we do, the more we modify our approach to the overall plan. This evening, right after dinner, the rains paused and we experienced another magical moment in the mountains. Right at sunset, the remnants of clouds from the storm were rising from all of the valley crevices. Larry called them whispies. This is where clouds get sucked into a valley and appear to wait until the passing of a storm. They then make their magical appearance by dancing upward towards the sky as they evaporate. When this occurs right at sunset, it proves to be a better show than any cable T.V. program.

Let me take a moment to share a little observations to put things into perspective for the future. For years, I have heard Larry talking about spending time in the woods and clearing the woods. I never took the time to ask for any detailed explanation of what was involved in clearing the woods. It wasn’t until Monday morning when I was in the middle of experiencing did I have any real clue as to what he really meant about clearing the woods. I now have a first-hand personal account of clearing the woods.
Although I can conduct hours upon hours of research for our world-tour, I will never be able to fully comprehend the magnitude of it all until we actually experience it. I have had an awakening of those microscopic sensors in my brain that has allowed me to look at things from a totally different perspective.

As we progress along the path of planning this trip, you will be privileged to step inside our thought process and see how it evolves as we nudge closer to getting on that first airplane. If you are observant enough, you will see the subtle changes as we mature and tick off the miles on this wild journey of ours.

There are many factors that will determine our agenda over the weeks to come. I recently found out that my son, Daniel, will be heading down to south Florida on a job the first week of April. This will require a change in our original plan so I can spend some time with him before he departs. This is a great example of how flexibility will play into our travel plans of our world-tour. Sure we will continue to do research and plan, but we need to maintain as much flexibility and spontaneity into our plan as possible. Some of the reading I am doing right now focuses on this aspect.

I’ll close this entry out with one last thought. Lynne and I are, indeed, feeling a sense of freedom we have never known. We have already begun our journey into the unknown and are cherishing the little things in life. Seek out those simple things in life that set you free. If even for a brief moment, take advantage of these moments. Life is far too short to miss out on those magical moments.

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Comments

[Orlando]

Hi
John, Glad to see you made out of the dustbowl and I will be following your adventures. Good Luck

[Loreta Pittman]

I need pictures!
Please post pictures, I am so envious of the picture you paint with your words...