Long time no blog

Wow, has it really been over three months since I last posted anything here? According to Blogger, it has. It looks like I completely bypassed the Summer, as my last post dropped during the last week of Spring, and this one's being done a couple of weeks into Fall. I think I've officially reached that point in adulthood where months seem to pass by in-between blinks. It's not cool. It's not cool, at all.

This Summer was another busy one, as they always are. No vacations, again. Not a lot of outings in general. It seems like when you live on acreage there's always something, or rather multiple something's, that need to be done. I regret that, sometimes, but more often than not, I'm grateful for where I've been able to end up in life. Besides, all the physical activity keeps me staying in good shape, and also keeps me from having to be out amongst the masses; and all of the crazy that comes with that.

I know that some folks in the past have expressed an interest in hearing about my various animal encounters. The powers that be spent most of the Summer saying that we were having drought, which was probably technically correct, but as someone who loves warm weather, hates rain/snow, it sure was nice. I'm sure that it did negatively effect most of the animals/insects though, as pretty much all of the smaller waterways and ponds were dried up by mid-Summer. Water got put out in various receptacles around the house though, so between that and the couple of deeper creek pools that resisted drying up until just a week or so before the rain came from the recent hurricane, the forest folk were kept hydrated as best as possible. Aside from the warmth, which was much appreciated, another benefit from the so-called drought was that the ticks weren't very bad this year. Normally they show up in the Spring, then dehydrate themselves during the hottest part of the Summer before returning for a second wave near the end of the season. This year though, we only got the first wave, and even that seemed light. 

Despite being outside quite a bit, as usual, my encounters with wee ones were considerably fewer than normal this year. Probably the most exciting, but also briefest, was my finally getting to see a black bear in the yard on my birthday (back in July). As far as birthdays go, this year's wasn't one of the best (certainly not the worst though), as I had to spend the day doing boring adult stuff, which included multiple errands ran to boring adult businesses (and no, not those kind of adult businesses). However, the day was salvaged when, as I was preparing my dinner, I happened to glance out the kitchen window just in time to see the bear in the front yard. I only got to see it for about thirty seconds because it was already across most of the yard. Even from a couple of hundred feet away, I could tell that it was full size, and very healthy looking. From the yearly piles of poop that are found near the house, I knew that we had bears around, it only took ten years to finally see one though. Of course, the way people are so kill-happy around here, it's amazing that there are even any around. I do wish that I would've had more time to get outside and try to talk to it, or at the very least, try to get a photo or two, but I guess just seeing one for a few seconds was good enough for the time being. The funny thing too is, I think I might've been very close to it just two days earlier when I was walking through the creek near the house and heard something large in the woods about thirty to forty feet ahead of me. Whatever it was sounded like it was tearing open a log (it's a very distinct sound) and there were a bunch of blue jays overhead losing their minds. I was traveling via the water in order avoid the dense vegetation along the shore (possible snakes), and would've had to have ventured onto land and go through the woods a bit to get to where the sound was coming from. I have to admit, even though I thought at the time that it might've been a boar (which can be extremely dangerous), I was tempted to get closer, but the mosquitoes were so bad that day, that they forced me to turn back. Was it the bear that I heard? I'll never know.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a very good modern human, in that oftentimes I don't carry a phone/camera on my person, so if something interesting happens I can't always relay the experience via pictures. And even when I do have the phone with me, I'm usually more focused on experiencing the moment than I am thinking that I need to take photos of it. One of the few times that I regret this mindset occurred a couple of months ago while I was helping my mom sort through a pile of building materials. The pile had only been there for a few weeks by that point, but apparently every toad within a square mile radius had decided to move in to the pile during that time. I've never seen so many in one place before. It was like a toad orgy under there. There was also one black widow in there as well, which, while they aren't that uncommon around here (I come across their old webs in the woods during the Winter on a regular basis - they're unmistakable thanks to their messiness), this was the only one I've seen so far this year. Since this pile had been in an area that was about to see more human activity, we ended up relocating all of the toads (not fun trying to catch them all), and the spider, to a safer spot.

One of my least favorite things to do is pull-up/cut unwanted saplings, but it's something that needs to be done a couple of times a year. It was while doing so a few months ago that I got tagged by a saddleback caterpillar. I was cutting one tree, when another sprung back and hit my arm, which produced an almost needle-ish sensation. I thought at first that it was a sticker vine that I didn't see, but after not finding one and then looking around more carefully, I found this little fucker hidden upside down under a leaf...

I actually had my phone with me for once!

Now, there's no shortage of stinging caterpillars around here, and I have seen these before, but didn't know that they were one of the stinging variety. Thankfully, I was wearing a long sleeved shirt, so the effect wasn't too bad. All that was needed was a bit of alcohol (of the rubbing kind), and a strip of duct tape to pull out any of the remaining spines (and arm hair). It ended up being just a minor irritation for a couple of hours, so not the end of the world. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, no, I didn't kill the caterpillar. I did move it to a different area though.

And the only other notable animal thing that I can think of happened just last week while I was doing the yearly cutting back of the grass around the pond. It took me about an hour to do so, as this is done by hand, so as not to have too much of the debris end up in the pond. Anyway, I had just finished when my mom came over to see the final results (it's very transformative), and while I was raking back some of the grass from the water's edge when I heard a small plop and my mom said "Oh". Without looking up, I said "another frog?", to which she replied "no, copperhead". All I could say was "what?". I had just been where she was, and I didn't see it, nor did it apparently care about what I was doing so close by. I've still not seen one since getting here, so this wasn't cool. And of course, rather swim across the top of the water like most snakes would've, this one had to go under the surface. I waited a few minutes too see if it would reemerge (they can only hold their breath for a couple of minutes), but I didn't see it, and there's so many places that it could've come up unnoticed that I just went about doing what I was doing. I finally saw my bear, but obviously the copperhead is gonna have to wait until another time.

Aside from the busyness that comes with Summer, one of the other things that kept me from blogging was another cheap subscription to Ancestry. It was one of those flash sales for previous members, $5 a month for three months. This also happened to coincide with another very cheap subscription to Genealogy Bank, and a slightly less cheap, but still affordable, Newspapers.com subscription. I hadn't ever had all three together at one time before, so I was trying to make the most of it. With me only being able to do about 45 minutes per day of real computering (so as not to trigger my vertigo), it's awfully difficult to take full advantage of those three sites, and try to churn out blog posts at the same time. My Ancestry subscription ran out a little over a week ago, but I was able to get quite a bit done. This post is already running long, and I still have a few things that I'd like to get to, but I have much genealogy stuff I want to talk about, so I'm probably gonna do yet another post on the subject in the very near future (lucky you!).

Oh, but on a quick semi-related note, I was reading somewhere in recent months that there are a number of genealogy groups on the Facebook, most of whom focus on specific countries or peoples. Since I find myself being able to go back very far with certain familial branches, I thought that a few of these groups might be a way to further said branches along; so I did the unthinkable... I joined the Facebook! Being busy trying to do so many other things, I've not done anything with the account since creating it, but will start trying to give it a go in the very near future. I've never done the Facebook before, but I'm hoping it'll be better than the Twitter, as I didn't care for that site one bit.

My mom told me somewhat recently that one of her friends wanted to meet me. Apparently she's talked about me enough that he thinks I'm worth being introduced to. My reply to this request was "why?". Not only have my conversational skills eroded quite a bit over the years (isolation will do that to a person), but as I've come to recently realize, I've turned into a fairly boring person. Pretty much the only topics that I want to discuss anymore are genealogy (mine and yours), hundred year-old amateur baseball teams, 18th and 19th century sailing, and what books I've recently read, or am currently reading (or what you've read, or are currently reading). And maybe postcards too, as those have been my primary collecting interest for much of this past year. My interests have changed so much over the last few years, and I can tell that they're not doing so yet. I feel, dare I say, like I'm beginning to transition into middle age. It's a bit odd, but not all together unpleasant. 

And speaking of recently read books, here's my last three in order:

Crazy '08 is ostensibly about the 1908 Major League baseball season, with a bit more of a lean to, as advertised, the Cubs season in particular. It's pretty good, though the author does let her political leanings start to seep through in a few areas, but ends up corralling them before they get as insufferable as they do in a lot of other modern releases. 

I probably wouldn't have even noticed The Historian as Detective had it not been sitting with the cover facing outwards on an overcrowded shelf at the Book Cellar. It looked very promising, and for a buck I thought it was worth the chance. I'm very glad I took that chance. The editor opens up the book by comparing historians and researchers to fictional detectives, as apparently many of the more prominent folks in these fields were big fans of detective fiction, or at least at the time of this book;s writing they were. The essays focus primarily on research and discoveries/frauds uncovered by historians. The articles themselves were culled from many different sources, and have been edited down to make for more concise reading. There's also a small recommended list of further reading within each chapter that's made up of similar nonfiction, as well as fictional detective stories that are in a similar vein. This part alone was worth the purchase. This book was far better than I could've imagined, and what's more, it introduced me to Richard Altick (more on him in a moment). And as an extra added bonus, my copy was signed by the editor, Robin Winks.

The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England was an absolute joy to read. Highly recommended if you're into this sort of thing. Ian Mortimer breath of knowledge, and ability to write about it, really is quite something. I hadn't been aware of him, or his extensive catalogue, but am now in the process of rectifying that (I just recently got The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England as well).

For the longest time I've been one of those people who holds off buying certain things online in the hopes that maybe someday I'll find it cheaper in person. Meanwhile, years go by, and I never get to experience whatever that thing is because I inevitably never find out in the wild; at any price. I decided at the beginning of the year to try and change this mindset, if only because A). I'm not getting any younger, and B). I truly do believe that many tangible things are gonna start getting even harder to find (in person and online) in the coming years than some of them already are. One of the areas that this, dare I say, toxic, mindset, has negatively impacted me the most is with books. I have a big 'ol wantlist of books that I come across anywhere (at any price), and that aren't available through the local libraries, and yet, many of them are just collecting virtual dust in various online stores while they wait for me to get over my silly hang-up of not wanting to "overpay" the couple of dollars that it would take to get them.

With this in mind, I recently ordered a couple of books from Thrift Books. If you've ever bought anything from them before, than you know that their packaging is less than ideal, but the books themselves tend to be in better shape than described; as was the case with this order.

Both of these have been on my list for a while. Much too long of a while

See, I told you that I'd come back to Richard Altick. I don't know how it was even possible, but Professor Altick has been flying under my radar for far too long. The Scholar Adventurers, has been known to everyone but me. Part of his chapter from this book about James Boswell's papers ("The Secret of the Ebony Cabinet") was featured in the just mentioned The Historian as Detective, and that article was enough alone to make me want to read its original source material. I'm currently reading two books, a George Washington biography and a collection of stories from E.F. Benson, and even though both should be finished with the next couple of days, I couldn't resist starting in on Scholar as well. Even after just a couple of chapters, I can't recommend this book enough, it's so good! Though I should probably caution those that feel like they were born in a later time than they should've been, that this book may intensify those feelings, possibly even causing minor depression, as the kind of research and/or discoveries that are covered in this book are, unfortunately, a thing of the distant past. It also sure makes "researching' via the internet seem a lot less interesting/important than it already is.

Almost all of Mr. Altick's catalogue looks appealing to me, and I have no doubt that I'll own the majority of it at some point. In the meantime though, Victorian People was the only other cheap one that Thrift Books had at the moment. And despite my transitioning into a boring old man I couldn't help but grab a little slice of childhood with Hans Holzer's book.

I've only been to McKay's (the bookstore and so much more in Knoxville) three times this year so far, which is a low since I found it some years ago. Those recap posts are usually one of my favorite things to write about, but even so, I just haven't felt like doing any this year (it probably doesn't help that I'm gonna have to rant about something there that I'm not ready to type out yet). I've done really well in my three trips, and the last one a few weeks ago was no exception. One or two of you might remember how much I enjoy finding things (ephemera) hidden and/or forgotten in books, so while I won't be showing my entire haul, I did want to share one quick book, and the interesting thing that was found between its pages.

I've been on a bit of a biography kick for most of the year, and don't recall ever having read one on Alexander Hamilton before. They had four copies of this book this time, and I figured that it was time to give him a go. As is always the case before I buy a book, I flip through the pages to make sure they're not written in, stuck together, torn, etc.; and in this particular instance, the flip through yielded an interesting find...

I've found lots of interesting things in books over the years, but never any money. It would've been better if it had been a Hamilton, but Abe was pretty good too. I have no doubt that this was intentionally placed in there for a future buyer, which is kind of funny, because I've thought about doing the same thing before. Although, in my case, I envision myself walking around inserting a few lower denomination bills in random books; thereby hopefully bringing a bit of joy to said books future owners. Maybe someday. Needless to say, I did flip through all of the other copies just in case. No more money though. One of the copies was in slightly better condition, but I figured this one might have some good juju attached to it; so that's one that came home with me.

I feel like there's something else that I wanted to mention, but for the life of me, can't remember. Oh well, the post is already kind of long, so whatever it was can probably wait for a future rambling. And I did get to end on a positive (bank) note, which is always nice. As usual, many thanks to those who stuck it out 'til the end.

An inscription that I can sink my teeth into

Sometime late last year my mom gave me a book that she had gotten at one of the places she volunteers at. This has become a fairly regular occurrence in recent years, but this particular book was a bit older than the ones she usually finds for me.

Being sans dust jacket, one would be hard-pressed to identify the title just by looking at the "cover". Book nerds may recognize the publisher's logo though.

A simple turn revealed the title... "Racul" 😆 by Bram Stoker. 

The book has clearly been read a few times over the years, but some hide glue will do wonders for the binding (provided I can ever find any).

The Modern Library was undoubtedly trying to cash in on the renewed interest that came about thanks to Universal's film adaptation of Dracula that was released the previous year.

I have a less than desirable paperback from the 80's, so this was a considerable upgrade. 

The book itself was a nice surprise, but the proverbial "cherry on top" is that it was inscribed...

"November 5th 1935

To Hazel Reid

From

Everett Howell"

That might seem innocuous enough, but given the title, the year in which it was given, and that it was being given to a woman is quite interesting. These days, nobody would think twice about giving a woman any particular book, but things were still different (better?) back in '35. Hazel must've been quite the woman. I'm also infinitely curious as to the relationship between Everett and Hazel. Were they friends? School chums, perhaps? Relations of some sort? Or, as I would like to imagine, was Everett courting Hazel? If so, again, she must've been quite the woman at the time to be the sort who would be receptive to receiving such a book.

I have done some cursory internet sleuthing, but with no location mentioned, it'd be quite the task to locate either of these folks......

---------------------------- Update -------------------------------

I wrote the first part of this post back in March, and then, obviously, never published it. Well, now three months later I've come back to finish it. Before hitting the publish button, I thought I'd give my search for these folks another go, and am happy to report that I've found them. And what's more, apparently one of my original speculations turned out to be correct, as they got married in 1936, so Everett was indeed courting Hazel when he gave her this book. I can honestly say that now that I know who the book belonged to, and the circumstances in which it was given, this instantly becomes one of my most cherished possessions.

Not surprisingly, both have passed, but if it you're curious to read a bit more about these folks, here's Everett, and here's Hazel. 

------------------------ Bonus content -----------------------

My mom has given me a few more books since the beginning of the year, and seeing as how I haven't posted in a while, I thought might be worth padding this one out a bit more by sharing the rest of those...

This book, and the next two, both came from one of my mom's excursions to McKay's.

I've made it no secret over the years how I feel about cellular phones, but, they do occasionally come in handy, especially when it comes to one person being able to instantly ask another whose a couple of hours away what books they still need in a particular series. And I know that I've already mentioned it in a previous post, but damn do I love these Aubrey-Martin stories. The dialogue between characters almost makes me swoon with giddiness. And all of the esoteric language and phrases are just a thing of sheer bliss. 

Everything from here on came from one of the places my mom volunteers at; which I'm hoping most of you would understand why I'm not publically naming either of. She doesn't get a discount at either place (books are generally a dollar apiece though), but does have access to items before the general public, so in some cases, I guess by proxy that means that I do to. It's been nice, at least as far as books go.

It's funny how I had little-to-no interest in anything sailing prior to starting my genealogy research last year, and now I can't seem to get enough of old accounts/fictional stories set in centuries past.

My mom and I are both fans of Harlan Hubbard, and with the Ohio River being such a big part of his life/work, she thought of him, and then me, when she found this book. And what's more, this particular copy has another nice inscription...

And no, I haven't tried to find these people yet, as I just got it a few weeks ago. As an extra added bonus, this book contains a bunch of ephemera tucked in between it's pages; none of which I've look at yet.

My mom already got me a copy of this book a number of years ago, but that one was minty fresh, and signed by the author, and while I don't collect books, I still didn't want to muck it up so I never read it. This one is definitely a reader though, so I fully intend to finally do so.

I wonder if people called Michael are more predisposed to writing about the Hindenburg? If one only had these two books to go by, it might seem somewhat plausible.

I don't usually go to either place that my mom volunteers at, but did go to one a few weeks back. While there, I couldn't help but go through the books. The rest of the books in this post were gotten that day.

I've been spending more and more of my time reading and researching local history, so both of these were must haves. The Cumberland County book is of some note, in that many things of interest (to me) are mentioned in passing, but aren't fleshed out nearly as much as they could've been. I guess those things weren't of interest to the authors.

I'm not reading as much about ancient history as I used to, but this one looked good.

There are a lot of books like this out there, some good, many bad. Where this one will fall is anyone's guess.

My interest in English history wasn't that high before starting my genealogy research. It's grown considerably since then. 

And finally, a biography for a fictional character. I've only read one of the Hornblower stories thus far, but this seems like the sort of book that might actually work better if I read it before reading any more of the original stories.

Oh, and I guess for a bit more bonus content, though not book-related...

I spotted a snapping turtle walking by the patio door last month, likely headed towards either the waterway behind the house, or the pond just beyond that.

By the time I got outside, he, or she, had decided to take a rest amongst the echinacea (which by now is in bloom). Here's the ass end, dinosaur tail and all.

As is always the case with their kind, it turned to face me as I approached. They don't seem to go out of their way to look for a fight, but they're always ready for one if it comes to them. This one wasn't full grown yet, but could still easily take off a human finger with one bite. It should go without saying that I didn't give it a chance to do so; just grabbing a few pictures, and then letting it be.

Ok, no more bonus content for today, I think this was enough, as I'm trying to ease myself back into blogging after taking a few unplanned months off.

Who needs a garden gnome...

... when you can have a garden turtle!

I came across this cutie while pulling out some sticker bushes about a week and half a go. And while it's far from uncommon to cross paths with an Eastern box turtle, after all, I've done so multiple times each year that I've lived here; but it is a little more uncommon for them to stick around one location for so long; as it's now been a week and some change, the turtle is still here.

I had made a couple of small piles of sticker bushes on the day I found it, and for reasons I now can't remember, ended up leaving said piles on the ground overnight. The next day I found that the turtle had moved into one of the piles, and there it stayed for the next 4-5 days. I forgot to get a picture of it tucked in there, but I did get this one of it looking the entrance.

The pile of sticker bushes must not have been in the right location, because it has since moved back to the are where I first found it. Seems to be a better spot for sun, and food, so I'm thinking that's what was behind the move.

Normally when I find them out and about, I do tend to pick them up to see whether they're a male or female (flat shell on bottom = female, concave = male), but I don't want to do anything that might make this one leave (i.e. insult it), so I've resisted the urge to check. It would be nice to know how to properly address it, but I'm okay just continuing to call them "sweetie" (fun fact: I call almost everything I encounter outside, "sweetie"). I do know though that it is full grown, so it's at least 6 years old.

I've also been trying to bribe them into staying by providing some food scraps, well, a couple of apple slices, and few bites of banana. Both of which seem to have gone over like gangbusters. I really hope that it does stick around for awhile, as it's been nice to have someone to talk to, but I'm prepared for whenever it needs to move on.

Kind of a short post today, so here's one more recent non-turtle picture that I took...

I was so focused on getting home this particular day that I didn't even notice this modern General Lee sitting next to me until after I had loaded some groceries and was just about to pull out of my parking space. Had I not been so focused on going home, I probably would've drove around the other side to get a shot that didn't have the cart return in the way. I prefer the original, but still found this persons "General Webb" to be mildly interesting.

Watch those digits!

There are a LOT of ponds and lakes in my general area. So many in fact that a lot of folks have them on their properties, myself included. And when I say pond, I'm not talking about some fancy coy pond, no, these are just holes in the rock shelf that runs not too far below the topsoil for many miles in all directions. Obviously, said holes fill up with water, and you got yourself a pond. Or, if they're big enough, a lake. 

And since I live in a still relatively undeveloped area, it should come as no surprise to hear that a lot of wild things live in said ponds and lakes.

I'd say that at least half the properties in my "neighborhood" have a pond, so it's especially common to have one right around here. I've never measured it, but mine is probably around 20' x 10', and 4-5' at it's deepest point. It can vary quite wildly in size though. Three of the seven summers that I've been here, it's dried up completely, and pretty much every fall or winter it swells to half a size bigger with all of the rain that we get. 

Last week was one of those swelling weeks, as we had many, many inches of rain that ultimately led to some minor flooding. I thought it was gonna be much worse, so no complaints from me, well, aside from it being all dreary out for most of the week. 

On he second day of  rain, I happened to look out at the pond just in time to catch a bit of movement behind it, and even though I was pretty sure of what I had seen, I ran and grabbed the binoculars to confirm my suspicion -- which they did. It was only misting at that point, so I put my rubber boots on real quick, and made my way over to the source of movement.

That my friends is a snapping turtle, and at close to 18" across the back, a nearly full size snapper at that. As per usual, I took a few photos, most of which didn't come out very well thanks to the mist that was falling. This one turned out pretty well though, note the tail on the right.

Tempted as I always am, I resisted the urge to pick him or her up, so there's not a lot for scale here. An addition to the already stated measurements, I'd hazard a guess that this one was in the 25-30 pound range.

This is zoomed in a little too much, but at least I got semi-decent shot of that little dinosaur tail.

I think that this the fourth or fifth snapper that I've been fortunate enough to encounter since moving here, although this was the first one that has been over at the pond. Usually the pond only houses frogs and dragonflies (with the occasional sandhill crane stopping by as well) during the spring and summer, so it was pretty neat to find that this big cutie is most likely wintering in their this year.

EXTREME CLOSEUP!

I realize too that I should be including a picture of the pond itself in here, but it's really dreary over there during the winter what with everything being dead and all, and I don't have a good picture of it during the spring, so I'll try to get one in a few months when everything starts greening up again and stick it in a post then.

I've been putting aside some money to get a couple of decent trail cams next year, one of which will be going over by the pond, so hopefully in the future I won't have to be looking outside at just the right moment to see who's stopping by.