To Kill A Mockingbird...Well, Maybe Not Today

It was a pleasant summer evening.  The kind where you turn off the air conditioning and open the windows when you go to bed.  A breeze helps you drift off to sleep, the bed sheet just enough cover to keep you comfortable.  Then, at 2 am the sound...loud, incessant, rude.  A constant litany of noise that could wake the dead.  Hours of it.  I rolled over and said to my husband, "Get a gun and kill it!"

This was my introduction to the state bird of Tennessee...the mockingbird.

Mockingbirds love for everyone to hear them  They know every song of every bird and they sing them all at the top of their lungs.  Mockingbirds love for everyone to see them.  They sit on the tippy top of the cedar tree next to the garage, on top of the bean poles and cucumber trellis in the garden.  Just look up and there they are.  Sittin' and singin'...sittin' and singin'...sittin' and singin'.

Now during the day when the sun is shining and there's work to be done in the yard it is really nice to hear them singing.  But at night when you are sound asleep and then suddenly awakened by this bird mocking.  Well, it's downright aggravating...hence, the request for the gun!

Today, however, I noticed the mockingbird sitting on top of a trellis in my garden.  And when I went out to pick off yesterday's blooms from my grandfather's daylilies, I noticed twigs in the crape mrytle tree.  So I sat for awhile and watched.  Sure enough, it's building a nest in my crape mrytle.

Three eggs and soon three bald, yellow beaked babies appeared.  When I work in the garden, the parents fly all around and squack at me...no mocking calls...just a worried squacking hoping I won't bother their offspring.  I look in every now and then to make sure they're alright.  The other day when the great windstorm came through, the crape mrytle trunks blew all apart.  The nest fell apart slightly and one baby dropped out of the nest.  I put it back three times.  The next morning they had all three settled into the dilapidated nest and all were well.

Now, I've tried to do the southern thing...planted crape mrytles and holly bushes and such in the yard.  And I figure right about now, 4 years after my rather insulting and threatening outburst, they might forgive me.

I can't wait to see those babies fly up to the top of the cedar tree and keep me awake some August night!

I'll Have the Trout, Please...with Shrimp and Grits

One of the best things about living in East Tennessee is the close proximity to The Great Smokey Mountains National Park.  We drive through every so often to take in the beauty of the changing forest, the mountain streams, and venture out on a trail...although I'm rather anxious about meeting up with a bear.  It is simply beautiful in every season.

And nowhere is standing in a cold stream casting a Clouser Minnow into just the right spot and hoping and praying that a rainbow or brown or brook trout will bite more loved than in the mountain streams of this great park.  One can spend thousands of dollars getting all the right rods and reels, the best waders and boots, the most experienced guide.  One can devote hours learning about casting and drag and leaders and flies.  One can acquire books and maps to fill a bookcase.  But, if the trout doesn't like the way you present your fly...it won't bite.  And one leaves longing to return and cast that fly across the stream once again.

 Hence, Troutfest 2012!  

Everything you need to improve that cast and catch that trout.  Everything humankind would want to see, hear and do regarding fly fishing in The Great Smokey Mountains.  It's simply a troutapaloosa!

I went to be with my husband.  I've dabbled in fly fishing.  I have my own rod and reel, but it's usually loaned out to a houseguest.  I've resisted buying waders as they are tight and  form fitting and not so attractive on a 50 something woman.  So I thought I'd go and take pictures and look at the art and enjoy the mountain views and a lovely dinner at the end of the day.   

But this guy, Jason Borger, changed all that.  Elbow to your side, raise it up and thumb to your eyebrow.  Lower your elbow, stop your forearm halfway.  One, two, three.  Ss...mooo...th!  No wonder Brad Pitt looked so cool in A River Runs Through It.  This guy was the consultant and fly fishing extra on the set!

I stood there with everyone else, entranced by his comedy of explanations and dead serious expression, holding my imaginary pole and casting my itty bitty imaginary fly.  45 minutes later I was ready to hit the streams.  Who cares about the bears...I want a trout!  My husband wanted me to come back on Sunday for the women's casting clinic, but I had learned everything I needed to know.  Ss...moo...th!  can be done from any position.  Upstream, downstream, across the stream and I even learned about drag and how to eliminate it.  All this in 45 minutes!


Dinner was lovely.  The Dancing Bear Lodge is nestled up in the foothills among the trees.  Beautifully appointed with rustic log furniture, luxurious fabrics and a fabulous front door.

The restaurant is a wonderful mix of rustic and elegant...fine wines and pottery dishes. A glass of Reisling, the chef's evening tasting menu...pickled grapes, red onion jam, beer bread, an assortment of cheese, cornbread salad, trout with andouille sausage and shrimp and grits, berry cobbler with corn meal topping.

The food is southern with a big city presentation.  Okay, I'll bite.  I'll have the trout...with shrimp and grits.

    

Birds And Squirrels Don't Share

                                             Figs come in cookies.  Fig Newtons to be exact.  

                                        Open the package, pour a glass of cold milk and enjoy. 

Last year I planted my first fig tree after enjoying a wonderful fig jam made by my neighbor, Brenda.  She has a big garden and grows okra and beans and taters.  So with great anticipation I watched these little buds grow and ripen. I made my plans to fix fig jam...just a jar would be all I could get from my young tree.  

But on the morning I planned to harvest them and enjoy these sweet morsels, I found not a one!  The birds or the squirrels or perhaps the construction workers next door had taken every single one of them.  

                             

                               Brenda said the squirrels and birds at her house didn't share either. 

This year I will have none of that...

I