Will the Piping Plovers and Sea Turtles Win?

Let's hope the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Park Superintendent can prepare a plan to protect the Piping Plover and Sea Turtles that can satisfy US District Court Judge Terrence Boyle. Apparently, a committee charged with developing a plan could not.

At stake here, from the environmentalist's point of view, would be close NC Route 12 to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic and let nature take its course. That option isn't viable as we all know the Outer Banks depends on tourists for much of its fragile economy.

We've been to the seashore sanctuary several times over the past few years and have encountered areas that were off limits to humans. These sites were confirmed Piping Plover nests and brooding areas and I can't say it was an inconvenience to me to let them have their own space.

There has to be a happy medium for the engangered species and humans to exist.

Defining Skiffs

There's been much discussion over on Bits and Pieces about what a skiff is.

I've used that term to describe the magnificent snows we've gotten here in Dirtmanland this winter.

Monday's storm was no exception. It started snowing around 9 pm Sunday evening and continued through the night. Our first inkling on the magnitude of the snowfall was at 5:20 am when we got the automatic alert phone call from the local school system announcing school was closed for the day.

We awoke two hours later thinking we'd be spending the day shoveling snow so we could meet with civilization. Instead, this is what we saw: Another skiff - less than an inch of snow on the ground.

At least our birds enjoyed winter's respite and our hi-grade seeds.

The wind, however, was blowing 30 mph and, with the occasional leftover flurry, we did have drifting snow across the state road in front of our house:


Two more hours and the sun was out and most of our snow was barren on the ground. Here, our beloved Aussies are enjoying their time outdoors while we contemplated rest inside.

And, so John of Wisconsin (not to be confused with J*** of Nowhere), this is how we live here in Dirtmanland. We'd welcome the opportunity to trade places with you for a season just so as long as the pups can come with us.

Yesterday Is One To Remember -- NOT.

We had snow. Not a lot. Not even a little. But enough to cancel school, which left Heir II home for a day to spend quality time with the family. II slept in, getting up around 11:30 more than six hours after his mother and me.

Heir I got up around the same time, early (hell, a lot earlier) by his standard, which meant chaos for the bathroom.

I had gotten a little work done in the morning hours and the dogs were all taken care of. SisIggy had washed the kitchen floor just as II came out from his bedroom and I, from the cellar he calls home.

Don't you dare come into the kitchen, Sis said just as the basement door opened and Heir I appeared.

What do you mean I can not come upstairs? Heir I asked.

It went downhill from there as the testosterone consumed the house. The Heirs got into it at that point and even I got into the act. Heir I stole my peanut butter and jelly sandwich at one point throwing the bread into the air and onto the carpet where Hokie sniffed and turned away like a trained dog is supposed to do.

The Heirs made up later in the day, just in time for Caisee to arrive for a delicious dinner, including desert, that Sis prepared. I even got back at Heir I, stealing his homemade lemonade as we sat down to dinner.

Then, as we prepared for sleep, we found one of our old and beloved cats was finally succumbing to her cancer. She has lost control of her bladder and Sis ended up on the couch and me, in my chair for the night.

Fluffy and I will visit the vet later today and I unfortunately already, know the results. But she will be better off and we will too for the love and devotion she has given us for the past decade and more.

Yes, school's back in session today and Heir I is still in the dungeon as I type this. The testosterone has lowered to bearable levels as we trudge through another day.

NOTE: Heir II went with me to the vet and he confirmed what we already knew. Fluffy had cancer and it had spread throughout her body. We stayed as he put her to sleep, then left to go to my parents to help on a project.

Dr. Seuss on a Blustery Birthday

Who Knew?

A Skiff of Snow

Could Blow

A Blistery, Blustery Puff of Glow

OK, I admit that is a lame excuse honoring Dr. Seuss on his 105th birthday but it's the best I can do as we wind down from our biggest snowstorm of the season.

We awoke this morning to another skiff, barely covering the grass in the front yard. But the wind was blowing as promised and there actually was snow drifting across the road. Of course, with only a skiff the drift wasn't much.

Oh, to live just a few miles east of here. They got upwards to several inches on the other side of the mountain and even more across I-95.

Do we have to elect Marion Barry again as mayor of Washington to get another 36-inch blizzard. I hope it doesn't take that.

Opossum, anyone?

At a message board I frequently post on, we recently had a discussion about all the ways to cook nurtia, a beaver-like rat specimen that destroys wetlands and bogs. That led to my pigsfeet blog earlier this week.

Now, I'm here to report on the opossum, the nocturnal creature that I haven't even found a use for.

It seems this man, Clay Logan, hosts several thousand people every New Year's Eve for the annual Possum Drop.

It's North Carolina's equivalent of the New York City Times Square extravaganza and Logan actually lowers a caged opossum as the clock winds down to midnight. Notice I wrote lowered instead of dropped like the do in other cities. Dropping an opossum would be inhumane to some folks while lowering is an allowable form of entertainment.

So if you have nothing else to do next December 31, join me as we head down to Clay's Corner, which I understand to be a small hamlet (population has remained at 200 for the past 100 years) near Brasstown, in Clay County, NC.

After all, it's the Opossum Capital of the World.

Editor's Note: Special thanks to the author of a new blog I came across yesterday, Dogs, Puppies and Prose, who visited Brasstown this past December 31 and witnessed the event. Also thanks to Boodro, the poster on Bits and Pieces that has lowered us to this new level of enterprise.

What's For Supper?

Hey Grandpa, What's For Supper? was one of the joke lines for the Hee-Haw TV show back in the 70s. If you missed it then, you can watch reruns now on cable's RFDTV. In the joke, Grandpa Jones would rattle off a litany of foodstuffs that were considered southern delicacies to some and gawd-awful to others.

I don't know if it's a Mardi Gras thing or just the beginning of a change in eating habits but a recent perusal of our local newspaper's church dinner ads got me thinking about it. And, a recent dialog on the Pulitzer-Prized Bit's & Pieces Blog between Boodro, Nancy, Michael C., Mark A., John and myself last night must have made me hungry enough to find something to compliment Boo's Fried Nutria.

So I am inviting my family and friends at B & P to join me Saturday for a Chicken and Pigs Feet marathon. Be sure to RSVP so I know how many feet to order.

Heir II Wins A Group 2

It took Heir II about 15 minutes today to accomplish what he couldn't in four years: win an All-Bull Run District medal.

How he did it makes it all the more fun. He was entered as a last-minute substitute for Strasburg High School's Co-Ed Varsity Forensic Team when two classmates couldn't participate in the district competition held at Madison County High School.

Heir II has always had nothing but disdain for any academic achievement. Just because he will graduate in June as the top male student in his class and among the top six or seven overall. He excels in math, takes AP classes and has maintained straight A's throughout most of his high school career but try and get him to go out for the Academic Team or be a member of the One-Act Play or, the Forensic team and the Heir would run the other way.

That was our surprise when he called at 1:30 pm this afternoon seeking permission to "go to Madison for a forensic outing."

I thought he meant he was going to James Madison University with his girlfriend Caisee and her Advanced Biology classmates to view a cadaver. We were the surprised ones when he got home tonight and proudly displayed his silver medal.

"I got second place for Impromptu Speaking," Heir said. "How wild is that?"

"What did you have to do?" SisIggy asked.

"What I do best," he said. "Talk for 15 minutes about Michael Phelps and Trimming a Christmas Tree. You know, just bullsh** them."

Yes we know. He's been doing that to us for the past 17 years. And to think you can earn All-District honors for it.


Now he gets to go to the state's Region B Co-Ed Forensic Championship, March 15 at Buffalo Gap.

And that's no BULLSH**.