Going out to see the land when I first get back to Tennessee is one of my favorite things. Since I’m usually here just two times a year—late fall or winter and summer—I can expect great changes. Winter means being able to see the shape of the land. The leaves are down. The trees more resemble vertical lines and I can see the top and sides of the big knob on the 25-acre property. On the 14-acre property it feels like there is nothing between the gravel road and the falling cabin.
In the summer, the theme is green. Nothing is much visible beyond twenty yards. This is especially true on the larger triangle-shaped piece of land. This property is messy with vines of Virginia creeper, poison ivy, and Multiflora rose. There are many varieties of trees, small and large.
The smaller, rhombus-shaped property lies several hundred yards away, across neighbor’s land. It is close to the base of the Clinch Mountain, a ridge that runs for 150 miles through northeast Tennessee. This piece is characterized by large oak and tulip poplar and has boulders and random piles of reddish sandstone rocks that I’d like to learn to cut or hammer into flat building blocks. It has raspberry, lots of fern and, unfortunately, a good share of poison ivy on the ground that has climbed the tall trees with ropes as big around as my forearm. Because it has fewer small trees and an elevated canopy, this area has a more open feel than the denser triangle.
This is the spot with the falling cabin, aka, the old Sheridan cabin, named after a family that lived there in the 1920s. It was also reputed to be a hideaway for Chicago gangsters involved in the illegal distribution of alcohol during prohibition.
The cabin was capital L-shaped but is now lowercase. The narrow side contained a rock hearth kitchen. It completely collapsed more than thirty years ago. There are salvageable parts—the best being the roof on the remaining side. However, without access to a crane, keeping that aloft for use on an improved structure is a tricky bit of shoring up that I probably won’t attempt even with the help of a friend retired from the construction trade.
Part of the excitement about these trips is my first outing to the land just to make sure it is still there and in a condition similar to the way I last left it.
There is always a small amount of anxiety. Have illegal loggers come in and cut some big trees down? Is a neighbor encroaching with a road or equipment? Will I find shotgun shells scattered under a tree? Has my own negligence led to some problem like a tree fallen across a power line or road? The gravel road grown over?
There were no surprises when I went out Sunday evening at around six. It seemed greener and more jungly than usual but I attributed this to the late hour’s muted light. I toured the main trails and all the areas I like to keep clear — the memorial stones, the proposed cabin site, the driveway and around the shed and falling cabin. It will all need at least a day’s worth of string trimming and weed pulling. The growth doesn’t stop. Pulling is the best option but there is only so much bending over this sixty-year-old body wants to do.
A few small trees had fallen across the main trail. One of the cedars on the flat area had fallen and split vertically at the trunk like a fibrous piece of asparagus you try to snap too close to the bottom. It was one of the larger small cedars with a four-inch diameter. I’ll see what I can do with the wood. Maybe it will become a new swing gate for the driveway.
Strangely, a huge ball of cut rose bramble was also blocking the trail up near the flat spot. I tried to imagine how it got there. I guessed it came from the piles I left last summer along the west side of the clearing about fifty feet away. But how did it get there? It’s not the type of thing a strong wind can blow. It’s not tumble weed. This was a three-foot -tall ball of thick, dried, thorny vines. I thought maybe a deer got caught in it and brought it over before escaping from it’s clutches. Maybe in the antlers?
Do I need to start clipping the balls of bramble like I do the plastic, six-pack, can-holders I cut to keep sea creatures from getting caught in the rings?
While I did my rounds I made some measurements to see where I might fit a twenty-foot shipping container that I’m thinking of buying. I’d use it to secure my chain saws and power wheelbarrow and stack freshly cut lumber out of the rain.
My measurements didn’t seem positive for a transporter to get the container into one of two spots I’m considering. It would have to be dropped off along the road on my neighbor’s land and then I’d have to hire someone with a machine to drag or push it to the spot I want.
There is a video about how to move one of these 5,000 pound shipping containers by hand.
The video was made by one of my favorite YouTubers, Wilson Forest Lands, who stumbles over words and enjoys pontificating on their meaning while he shows you how to safely cut down a two hundred foot Douglas fir.
I just don’t know if I have the will to do it. I’ve been wearing my body out with home projects for months on end, after school and on the weekends. I love the physical labor and learning how to do new things, but, at the moment, I feel like I need to feed my spirit differently and part of that is getting out this blog.
I’m not offended if you didn’t notice that it’s been a while since I posted anything. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block as much as publication block. I’ve written plenty I just haven’t wanted to put any of it out there.
I’ve been caught in this trap thinking the only important thing to write about is the horrors of this vindictive, criminal president and his fascist thugs. And then I think, what can I say that hasn’t already been said?
I’m no kind of political strategist but maybe the whirlwind of ugly news is part of this administration’s plan to keep people in reactionary mode.
Maybe slowing down and saving energy is the antidote to lasting this storm and living to fight it well.
Driving the ten miles back from my land Sunday evening it was after eight. There was still light in the sky. I drove slowly on two-lane, highway 11W and curvy, Emory Road. I didn’t turn the radio on. I had my windows down. No one came behind me the whole way back to Aunt Linda’s. I passed farms and green fields with five-foot-tall rolls of yellow hay and a calf suddenly taking off next to a fence line, infused with the joy of their short life. It felt so good to not be in a rush.
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Core characteristics of a fascist and fascist regimes include:
- Extreme Nationalism: The belief that one’s nation or race is superior to all others and must be protected at all costs.
- Authoritarian Control: Support for a single, dictatorial leader and a one-party state that demands absolute loyalty.
- Suppression of Opposition: The use of censorship, violence, and secret police to eliminate political rivals and dissent.
- Subordination of the Individual: The belief that individual rights should be given up for the perceived good of the nation or “race”.
- Militarism & Violence: The glorification of military power, physical force, and often imperialist expansion.
Spotty West Goes East 