I’m in Corryton, Tennessee, at my aunt’s 55+ senior condo — part of a attractive, 12-unit development surrounded by farmland. I’ve been here a week now. Last Saturday I took a Greyhound bus from Raleigh, NC, where I was visiting family. The eight and a half-hour trip landed me in Knoxville a few minutes after midnight. For $65 it’s really a pretty good deal.
The other two Greyhound options were more than 15 hours and more expensive. The red-eye that leaves Raleigh just after midnight is $163. Go figure? Usually misery has a price discount, not the other way around.
Actually, Greyhounds are much improved from the days when I took my first solo trip as a 13-year-old in November 1978. The date is retrievable because someone told me there had been a mass suicide at a place called Jonestown. (Suicide at gunpoint.) Trailways was a national bus line back then but the competition didn’t seem to do much to improve the experience. Smoking was still allowed and the back of the bus was often like a barroom.
Now drinking and smoking are prohibited and boisterous behavior is usually not tolerated. The AC was a bit much but I always bring extra layers when venturing to indoor spaces in the south. I gave a soon-to-be fifth-grader a long sleeve shirt. She was trying to make a heat tent by stretching her t-shirt over her bare knees and sock-less feet.
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I’ve put my cabin-building dreams on the back burner. My current focus for the triangular piece of land is to get to a place where I’m carrying a walking stick more often than a machete. Right now only about a sixth of the boundary line is hikable and there are no established trails that bisect the property over the central knob. Ideally, those trails would have carved-out steps where the incline is steep.
I bought a utility cart to drag all my brush and tree-clearing equipment with me as I work. I can already tell this will be a big time and labor-saver. I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner.
On Tuesday, I made my first trip to the land. I removed the wire mesh and steel cart out of Aunt Linda’s car, assembled the sides and packed in my chainsaw, more fuel and some new tools. I cleared the path from the nearest spot on the road to the shed. A light rainstorm in the morning kept the spider webs down. Small saplings, poison ivy and other ground cover had popped up since my last visit.
There are new, low-hanging branches and thorny vines that grab my clothes. I assume the thorny vines are a wild rose but I’ve never seen them flower. There are also plenty of newly fallen trees.
This land would be considered a tinderbox out west, but there is enough moisture here that it is not a high risk. Still I need to get serious about better land maintenance. It was a dry spring until a few weeks ago.
I’d hoped to clear some of the newly fallen trees from the already established trails, but after I got all my equipment to the shed (where it will stay during my visit), I couldn’t get the chainsaw started. This has been an issue since I bought it and it’s not because of user error or being a novice. After about a hundred pulls I gave up.
Realizing it would be best to get the saw to a shop as soon as possible, I packed up, locking the cart and everything else in the shed.
My cell phone wasn’t getting good reception probably due to the rain. When I got closer to Blaine I pulled over and called the Ace Hardware in Halls where I’d bought the saw. They are backed-up for two months on repairs but I was told I could bring it in for a quick check.
A buff, young, 6’5”, giant-of-a-man pulled the cord over and over as effortlessly as if it were the string on the back of a talking doll, but he wasn’t able to get it started either. He tried switching off the choke and pulling the spark plug just as I had. No luck. I couldn’t leave it there but he recommended I call around to some other stores.
I found a place that could take it about thirty minutes away in southwest Knoxville. By the time I left, it was rush hour.
Traffic jams are no longer just a big city problem. It took me over an hour to get back to the country roads outside of Corryton where it finally cleared up with about ten miles to go.
With plenty of non-chainsaw work to do I went back to the land the next day. I pruned the path that goes from the shed to the flat prospective-cabin-spot. By the time I got there my right hip was aching and giving sharp pains every time I lifted my leg. I pushed through and did some sporadic clearing on one of the two, partial, paths to the memorial stones.
At the granite slabs, I pushed off a thick mat of wet, fallen leaves and then hobbled back to the cabin-spot pondering whether to clear the trail down to the prospective driveway. The hip was telling me not to be a fool.
I’d tweaked it a few weeks before–twisting at an odd angle at the climbing gym. It was a noticeable sore spot but I always have a half dozen of those.
The plane ride to Raleigh made it worse. I was in the middle seat stuck in an odd pose. The big guy on my left took both arm rests and I tried to be conscious of sharing the other side with a woman on my right. My feet were spread around my backpack. My arms became t-rex appendages as I tried to make good use of my time doing computer housekeeping on the fold-down table while balancing pretzels and drinks to take advantage of refreshments when the steward rolled by with her cart. At some point the hip started to sing an aria of pain.
It didn’t help that I visited a climbing gym in Raleigh and another in Knoxville on Monday where I climbed through the discomfort. I’m usually the oldest person bouldering. As mellow and encouraging as most climbers are, I often feel like I have something to prove.
As my hip picked up its operatic solo during the second act on my land, my biggest proof is that my body is not as supple as it once was.
I made an appointment with The Joint Chiropractic, a chain of 700 offices across the country. They have quick walk-in service whereby they manipulate you into pretzel shapes and with sudden, violent motion, snap things into place. I felt great and wasn’t limping when I got off the table. I bought a pack of eight visits. The doctor recommended ice and a hard-foam, body roller.
After about two hours everything hurt again and it was hard to walk, but I’m going to stick with the procedures. I figure, if it’s making me feel good for two hours then it’s probably on the right track.
I’m disappointed that the chainsaw and body are keeping me from getting more done. I’ve been here for almost a week now but only spent about four hours on the land. The upside is that I’m getting this blog post out!
When I was here over Spring break the trees had not leafed out and I took advantage of the relative clearness to find more of the boundaries. I brought a metal detector with me and was able to find the buried barbed wire fence that runs for about ninety percent of the northwestern border. I marked trees all along the way and now have a more exact knowledge of this, the longest, side.
Once I’d marked the boundary I went back to measure to make sure that my corners were correct and that the distance from each other matched that on the survey. At first I used a 250 foot string, but it was difficult to manage. It didn’t lay flat on the ground, easily became tangled, stretched or curved and was a pain to roll up and unspool. The next day I switched to using a hundred foot tape measure. It was all-around easier.
I even found a “set stone” indicated on the survey thanks to the help of a friend who told me that a “set stone” is exactly what it sounds like — a stone that is usually marked with a dab of red paint and small enough to be moved around and set in place to indicate something like a boundary.
I met with the older couple that recently bought the land on the east side and we took a ride on the road that leads to the top of the knob on their land. We talked about where we believe the road intersects my boundary. Then we walked through the woods together where they had found the corner pin – a piece of iron rebar pounded into the ground and tied with red marking tape.
This couple would like to buy this corner of the land to have their road free and clear of my property. I haven’t suggested a price, but, unless it is inordinately large, I’m more inclined to give them right-of-way with the hope that I could use the road too. It’s useless to talk price or access at this point. We really need to get our common boundary re-surveyed to know exactly what is theirs and mine. Unfortunately they were sold the land believing that the road is entirely on their property.
I’m happy to say that while my time has been short traipsing around the woods, it has been tick-free (WARNING–tick pictures below). I bought some additional shirts and pants for land work and have been more careful about securing clothing: sticking pants in socks, wearing a light neck gaiter, covering my hair and spraying DEET-based insect repellent around my ankles and wrists then rubbing a handful into my face, neck, and ears. I finish off by running my still DEET-damp fingers through my hair.
Ironically, just before my trip I got two ticks just brushing through high weeds on the roadside in Tomales, CA. It was only the second and third time in my 32-year stay that a tick has latched onto me in California—and the first time was just a few weeks earlier in Briones Park. Maybe all the rain we’ve had has brought them out?
Funny, the two ticks that I got the same day were two different species – a Pacific Coast tick and a Dog Tick. I got them both off after about four hours so I’m not worried that they transmitted harmful bacteria (it’s generally agreed that it takes at least 24 hours for the bacteria in their guts to make it into their hosts.)
I did use the bites as an excuse to get a round of an antibiotic, Doxycycline, to have on hand just in case I get bit by the lyme-carrying, black-legged tick or find any species on me that I think may have been attached a while.
Speaking of dangers in the wood (thought this one worries me less), this adolescent bear was spotted across the road, about fifty yards from my shed next to my neighbor’s house. Here are the pictures the neighbors took a few weeks ago:
It feels good to get a post off again after that long blank stretch. Summer solstice was unmarked for me on Wednesday except for a radio announcer who mentioned it. I know solstice is the official beginning of summer but, for me, it means my school break is almost half way over. Still there are plenty of possibilities for new beginnings, adventures, rest and relaxation. I hope you find lots of that good stuff.
I’m only about fifty pages in, but this is a gorgeous book I want to share. Take care.
Spotty West Goes East 