Mountain Mama's Point Of View

  Life goes on. All my flower beds are looking empty and brown. I have removed all my ferns and geraniums and such indoors to live through the winter. Only thing thriving is my patch of collard greens and my peas. The peas are still blooming and I have picked a handfull for my eating pleasure. HeWho is not a big fan of peas and I will only eat fresh or frozen peas. I ordered some Madagascar vanilla beans and am now making my own vanilla extract. It will make about 4 cups and cost about $30. Price the 4 ounce bottles in the store and you will be impressed. I used the bottle from the vodka to make it. I took the 25 beans and chopped them into 2 inch pieces and put them in the bottle, then topped them with 4 cups of 80 proof vodka. I was feeling thrifty and noble. I could actually bottle this and give some as gifts! I hunted for glass bottles online. Harder to find than you would think. I wanted 10 to 12 ounce bottle with tight lids or corks ..... that don't cost a fortune. Just as we...

  We have both avoided looking down into the ravine for the past few days. I can't stop hearing my cat calling for me and I relive the entire event. I have been using sleep aides to be able to sleep. Unfortunately this does not prevent dreaming. This is where we finally got to Martha. I was snapping pictures and then enlarging them to try to find him. He was covered in mud and leaves and was a dark gray color that looked like a rock. Can you see him? He is on the other side of the log laying on the ground. Still hard to see. I knew it was him only because this is where the dogs dropped him when the owner finally called them. I kept my eye on him until HeWho crossed the creek so I could direct him. I assumed he was already dead because he was not moving and no longer responded when I called his name. Martha never responded to "kitty kitty". He knew his name and would either come to me or look at me if he could see me. At least he knew I was trying to get to him and I hope ...

  My mother used to say that bad things come in threes. That popped into my head last night as I was trying to go to sleep. I pulled Eddie closer to me and rained kisses on his head and told him how much I loved him. Sensing something out of the normal, Bo crawled out from the covers and actually snuggled next to me and allowed kisses to his head. Toni Louise lay there, her head partially under her master's pillow, and stared at us. I reached a hand to her and she gave it a quick lick and burrowed deeper. My foot explored the bed without any obstacles. Martha used to take up residence at the foot of the bed in the center of my side. I could either put a foot on either side of him or maneuver to one side or the other. He was not one to move after he settled in for the night. I used his body heat to warm my cold toes. I am out of tears. My mind will just touch the edges of the horror that was watching my pet be mauled. Cujo dying without me holding him was enough to deal with. I was ...

  Cujo will have company today. Martha joined him yesterday. Not a peaceful death, though. He was mauled to death by two pitbulls whose owner thinks it is okay to let his dogs roam this mountainside. Martha rarely left the parameters of our property. He did like to go down the ravine to the stream for a nice cool drink and this is our property. He must have been doing just that yesterday afternoon. We heard a commotion, dogs barking and a cat yowling. We immediately looked around to see if Martha was in the house, he wasn't. Looking down near the stream I could see two white pits attacking a cat. I could not tell if it was Martha. It sounded like him and he was putting up a good fight, but there is a stray that looks like him. I started down the ravine and it was slow going. All the leaves made it all the more treacherous. I had my walking stick and I had to stop frequently and push leaves out of the way. I was yelling at those dogs the entire time and I picked up rocks and sticks ...

  As we head closer to the date to cast our vote, the ads are coming in non-stop. I live in North Carolina, but we get our news out of Georgia. This means that I hear a lot about the Georgia candidates. I don't know a lot about North Carolina, haven't been here that long.  I have done my research and know who I will cast my vote for. None of the candidates are notorious enough to get national coverage like the ones in Georgia. It is easy enough to look up records and check facts about the reliability of the candidates word. Lest you think I am going to get all political and post my views to try to convince others to believe what I believe, that is not what I am up to. I was just sitting here relaxing after raking leaves and heard a message for Georgia voters and it struck me funny. In this ad the voice over starts by telling all the listeners that your vote is private and you do not have to share your choice with anyone. I think everyone is already aware of this .... or maybe ...

  If you hang out here much, you might recall my battle with Humana shortly after we moved here. We have our monthly bill to Humana automatically deducted from our checking account, always have. We chose our supplemental insurance plan before we turned 65, so that everything went into action without a big hassle. We had a broker handle everything and it was super simple and easy. Everything was going well until we switched to mail order from Humana. Oh, we got our prescriptions in a timely fashion and I was grateful that it was in place during the Covid lock down. My problem with them was ordering refills. It should be a simple task done on the phone or online. It was anything but simple. Their website was a nightmare to navigate. Everytime I tried to log on to handle refills, my password would not work and in order to obtain a new one I had to call Humana and wait through an arduous prompt before reaching a person. Then it was transfer after transfer until I could talk to the "ri...

  We set out to attend the Punkin Chunkin contest around noon. They have food there, so we didn't bother with lunch. It wasn't that far away, sixteen minutes according to Siri in Brasstown, NC. We turned too soon onto someone's private drive and were hunting for an easy turn around when we came upon a mechanic's garage with a couple of dogs hanging out. The man was nice, but he had dogs, so .... He gave us better directions than Siri had provided and we were on our way in minutes. In minutes we were turning onto the correct road. A small two lane country road, very picturesque. We weren't going fast, but when we got about here, we came to a full stop. It took 30 minutes to navigate this mile and a half road to get to the venue. It was stop and go and we inched along. Every few minutes HeWho would question me and ask if we should just turn around and go somewhere else. I declined his offer and told him I was determined to see some punkin chunkin! And it was not an un...