But I've seen it all in a small town...

Lyric courtesy of John Mellencamp.

I love living in the small-town south, because you just never know what you're going to find next.

For example, a herd of chihuahuas standing in the middle of the road.

I was on my way home from taking TFYO to school. She goes to school in "Historic Guyton", as opposed to "middle of nowhere Guyton", which is where I live. It's a very quaint little town, still has it's old water tower, and more churches than you can shake a stick at.

I was driving down Church Street, when I noticed the herd. I'm not really sure how many chihuahuas it takes to make a herd, but there were six standing in the road right in front of my car.

I stopped.

I honked the horn.

And then one of the little buggers barked at me and started biting my front tire.

Being the kind and conscientious person I am, I decided to put on my four-way flashers and get out to assist the dogs out of the road. That's when the black one, who was mostly grey from age, flopped over onto the road. I thought I'd killed him.

And that's when this sweet little old lady with a walker came out of the brick bungalow to my right and started calling for her dogs. Four of the six went running to her. The black one, who was thankfully not dead, kept laying in the road. And the one that was biting my tire, kept biting my tire.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about this! They don't usually run out in the street, and I'm just not strong enough to chase them down anymore," said the lady. I imagine she wasn't, as she was coming down from her porch on a walker.

"Oh, it's no problem," I replied, as casually as I could, with the other four chihuahuas deciding to come running back. At that moment, another car pulled up behind me.

"Y'all alright?" It was some guy in a pick up truck.

"Uh, yeah, just trying to corral some little dogs." So he got out and helped me herd the four back into this lady's house. I picked up the old dog and he crawled up to my shoulder, licking my ear. I then grabbed The Biter, and he immediately whimpered and went limp. I left my car running, and carted this lady's "babies" back into her house. As I was getting ready to leave, she hugged me.

"I just love living in my town,"she said. "The people in the south are always so friendly. Not like all those people from up north moving down here. They won't give you the time of day. Always speeding through here like they own the place."

I was going to tell her that I was from up north. I really was. But I was so touched that she thought I was from here, I just didn't have the heart to tell her. I did tell her she might want to think about a fence.

I went back outside, my car was still running, and nothing was gone.

Only in my town.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and I have picked up another award, two actually. These are from the delusionally delightful Jo Beaufoix.

Jo says on her blog:

The Community Blog Award celebrates people who reach out and makes the blogger
community a better one.

I'm honoured that she thinks that about me. I really am.

About the other award, Jo says she lurves me, but not in a rude way. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'll take it as a compliment.

What all of this really means, however, is that I need to have another awards presentation. I promise. I will. Really.

Seven angels seven plagues...

That lyric from Joydrop's Strawberry Marigold, which coincidentally seems to be the only song I could find with a "seven plagues" reference in it.

Several folks around the blogosphere have been very "list-y" lately. They've all been making lists for camping, visits from the Mother-in-Law, getting ready for back-to-school, etc. Now I always do a list on Fridays, but after almost stepping on a tree frog last night, I have a new list to share.

The Seven Plagues of Guyton, GA

(kinda catchy, eh?)

1. Sand Gnats

The little buggers are everywhere down here. They even named the local baseball team after these tiny, winged biters. This was the first pest we encountered when we bought our lovely, new rural home. They swarmed the window screens and doors first thing in the morning. They got so bad that I was literally sweeping piles of them out the front door. Eventually, they died out, only to be replaced with....

2. Spiders

We started off with your garden variety brown web-spinners, but recently moved on to Black Widows. Yes, those creepy big black spiders with the red hourglass. We killed four in the garage. Let me amend that, my husband killed four in the garage, and one almost landed on his head in the kitchen. We sprayed and stomped them out of our house, and they moved on to our next door neighbour's place. He did the same, and the neighbor on the other side of him started complaining about them. I don't know where they are now, but they aren't here. (If you'd like to read more about my run-ins with spiders check this entry) They spiders were replaced by...

3. Ants

Yes, I know. If we hadn't killed off all of the spiders, we wouldn't have ants. That's not true. Generally, the spiders around here don't get to eat ants, because the ants aren't dumb enough to walk into a web meant for a flying insect. They are, however, dumb enough to eat ant bait, stagger away, and kill off all of their brethren. Kind of like "The Manchurian Candidate" for ants.

4. Buzzards

I encountered these guys fairly early, and they really didn't bother me all that much, except for that first week when they kept landing in my yard. I think they were looking for the neighbour's chihuahua, who spends a lot of time in my yard relieving herself. No, they weren't a problem, until I almost ran one of them over on my way to work as it was picking clean what was left of an armadillo. (You can see my early ode to Armadillos here.) Most people hate buzzards. I think they serve a necessary function, one that the county appears loathe to deal with, anyway. They get rid of road kill, and they do look pretty in flight. On the ground, not so much.

5. Frogs

Every time it rains, we hear the lovely sound of tree frogs. And I do love it. I just don't love it underneath my bedroom window when I'm trying to sleep. Or stuck to my front door, where the cat is just itching to eat one. After a hard rain, I go out, and they are covering my house, sometimes one frog per two or three square feet of siding. We've also found them hiding in the grill. Oftentimes, they end up dead because we haven't checked the grill closely enough before finding them.

6. Flies

Especially around the trash cans. I think flies just come with rural living, but it still grosses me out to see something trying to crawl out of the trash can. I make Ray bleach the thing. I wish our neighbours would bleach their cans, too. At least so they're flies would stay out of my house. I've thought about trying the plastic bag of water trick. It's really prevalent in the deep south, where you hang a big plastic bag of water from the ceiling. It's supposed to get rid of flies. Or drown them. Or something. I have no idea if it works. I'm afraid to try it, because I'm pretty sure said bag would fall on my head during dinner preparation. Just a guess.

7. Dump trucks

The scourge of our quaint country lanes. I can't go to work, can't go to the grocery store, can't frantically drive all over the county looking for quality pre-k, without getting stuck behind one of these monstrosities. I shouldn't complain. One helped build my house, but they're also at dozens of construction sites all over the county. They just seem to be waiting outside my subdivision anytime I want to go somewhere. I haven't met a soul in this county yet who doesn't have a ding in their windshield (windscreen, you UK types) from a pebble launched from a dump truck.

So that's it, the Seven Plagues of Guyton, GA. Not as interesting as some other plagues, perhaps, but we all have our own peculiar regional problems to deal with, I suppose.

Oh, and for those who missed my note yesterday, there is an audio clip up in my profile now, for those who were interested in what my "radio voice" sounds like. It's the demo I threw together in an effort to get work *grin*

We chickens tryin' to sleep....

Thank you Louis Jordan.

Sorry for the late posting, kids, my brain isn't quite functioning yet. I was woken prematurely by roosters and a four-year-old.

As has been mentioned before, I live out in the country. For the record, I'm not one of these stupid yuppies who build McMansions out in a rural area, and then complain that everything smells like cow shit. Honestly, manure smells don't bother me. I had two indoor cats for thirteen years who shared a litter box, and nothing smells worse than a three-day-old litter box.

But the roosters are new. They weren't here when I moved in. I'm not sure, yet, where they've moved in to, because the land is flat, and sound travels a long way here, but since they're roosters, they wake up at the crack of dawn.

Many moons ago, when I did morning drive, this wouldn't have bothered me because I used to get up before the roosters. Now, my husband is the one to get up at 3 a.m. and I get to practice going back to sleep, until recently. For the last two mornings it's been cock-a-friggin'-doodle-do just as I settle back to sleep, 'round about 5 a.m. A little crowing wouldn't bother me, but with all that cackling going on, it's a little like listening to an interview with Graham Norton and Joan Rivers.

TFYO hasn't really seemed to notice, but she has been getting up much earlier than usual. So after the cocks stop crowing and I close my eyes to the blessed silence, I hear this:

"Yacky! It's morning! GET UP!"

Oh, yes, TFYO has given us all new nicknames. She's named herself "Quacky", I am "Yacky", and her father has been dubbed "Shmacky". No, I have no idea why. But for now, I'm blaming it on the roosters.

Anybody got a good recipe for coq au vin?

Take Me Home, Country Roads...

I live out in the middle of nowhere, I'm sure I've mentioned this before. I am surrounded by a lot of two-lane country roads, and I have to drive those roads in order to get to the interstates that will get me to work. And let me tell you something, it's been a bit of an adventure.

For starters, the good folks that live out here seem to think speed limits are pretty much optional. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no angel when it comes to driving, and I've been known to have a lead foot, especially on a straight-away. But most days when I'm out driving, it's almost like every NASCAR fan is on the road trying to live out his dream, but doing it in a pick-up truck. Case in point, this morning, on my way to work about 8:30 or so, some dude in a humongous pick-up comes racing up on my tail end. I was doing 60 mph in a 55 zone. He then proceeds to pass me, and I realize that not only is he driving a diesel truck, he's also hauling a trailer carrying an ATV. He flipped me off as he zoomed past. So much for legendary southern hospitality.

Now, I can hear all you die-hard southerners out there, yelling at me to "go back home if I don't damn well like it", but this was just one example of the weirdness that was my commute today. On my way home, I'm sitting at a stop sign, waiting to turn on to Highway 80, which will take me through Bloomingdale, and so on home. Just as I was about to pull out, Miss Piggy on a giant Harley decides she wants to turn left across my path. And she really did look like Miss Piggy. She had long blond hair, a turned up nose, and she was so sunburned, she was pink. A hog on a hog, if you will. Once I passed the Muppet Show on Wheels, I turned down Ga. Hwy 17. Just a few miles down the road, and driving past the elementary school, two guys on horses came trotting down the lane, perilously close to the pavement. To be fair, there wasn't much of a shoulder on this stretch of road, but it is a main highway, and I'm just not used to sharing the road with livestock. At least one of them was nice enough to tip his hat.

The final little straw, though, was once I turned onto the road that my house is off of, I got stuck behind a parade of classic cars, all headed to a show at our local rural winery. And they were all going about 35. Did I mention that I live in the middle of nowhere? I live in rural Effingham County, and I still managed to get behind a convoy.

Yeah, I know, first I'm complaining that everybody drives too fast, and now I'm moaning about only doing 35 mph. But that's okay, it just means I'm trying hard to fit in.