Archaeological find of the day

Walking around Spenardo del Sur after a good rain is sorta like beachcombing. You never know what you'll find.

While piddling around in the garden today, I found this die-cast toy car - a Fiat Abarth. The internet tells me it was made by Tootisetoy in the seventies. I had a bunch of these little metal toy cars when I was a kid. There's a good possibility that this one was mine.



I found this in garden where the old barn used to be. The barn fascinated me as a kid. It was full of all kinds of cool stuff and I wasn't allowed to go in there. "Too dangerous" they told me. "It could fall down any minute." Of course this made me want to go in there even more.

I took this picture of the barn in the early 1980s:





By the time I was finally allowed to go inside, it looked like this:



Of course, just because I wasn't allowed to go in the barn as a kid doesn't mean I stayed out of the barn. Which is why it wouldn't surprise me if this little toy car was dropped by yours truly 35 years ago right smack dab in the middle of the barn.


This is what the barn looks like now:


Except that this photo was taken a year ago and I've since removed those last few boards on the right (but the big pile of rusty tin in the upper left is still there) and I put up a sign that says "NO CHICKENS ALLOWED." Too bad chickens can't read.

It'll look nicer in a month when the veggies and flowers come up.

Shadrack, Lemuel and Lazarus

These are my friends Shadrack and Lemuel.


Of course, those are not their real names. I let them pick their own names for the blog and they got all biblical on me. That's Shadrack on the left and Lemuel on the right. That's Shadrack's house behind them. Story has it that the oldest part of the house dates back to the 1850s (an addition was made in the 20th century).

Shadrack hates having his picture taken so this will probably be the only photo I post of him. Lemuel's okay with photos so you'll probably see more of him. I sometimes work for Lemuel on his farm. He lives in a very tiny home that is only slightly bigger than Shadrack's front porch. Seriously. It's small. And Lemuel is a big guy. You can't tell in the picture because he's slouching but Lemuel is 6 foot 10.


Back to Shadrack's house: Look at the walkway leading up to the front door. It's all made out of big random stones. Looks like it's been there forever. (As always, you can click the pictures to embiggen.)



Look closer though. Notice the really big stone at the bottom of the photo? It doesn't quite look the same as the others.



Hmmm....there appears to be some writing on it. Let's take an even closer look.



Yep. It is the 127-year-old gravestone of Lazarus B. Ware. How it wound up in Shadrack's walkway is a mystery. So apparently is the resting place of old Lazarus' bones. Lucky for me, I like to solve mysteries.

I was able to turn up a little info on Lazarus. He was a white farmer who lived in the same West Georgia town Shadrack lives in. He had a mess of children and still has living descendants in the South. Much to Lemuel's disappointment, Lazarus B. Ware did not have a sister named Betta.

Rosemary's babies

My nanny goat, Rosemary, gave birth to two adorable babies on Saturday. They both look just like her.

Ice Ice Baby

In case you haven't heard, a big storm swept across the Southeast. Snow to the north of me. Rain to the south. Freezing ice here in the middle with me.

Spenardo del Sur and surrounding regions have been encased in a candy coating of ice for three days and counting.

(Click to embiggen)

On Monday, traffic halted. State troopers declared all roads in Randolph County and seven others as impassable.

One neighbor took advantage of the empty road and turned Pet Kittle Hill into a monstrous 2500-foot sledding hill. He drove his son up to the four-way stop on his four-wheeler and then let the kid slide 2500 feet back down. He'd follow his son on the four-wheeler and then take him back up to the top again.

I shot some shitty video from the porch. Go ahead and skip to about 30 seconds in. Imagine Helter Skelter playing in the background.

On Tuesday, one of my neighbor/cousins took matters into his own hands and hooked up the front loader to his tractor and plowed the road himself.



On Wednesday - today - some semi-official looking guys showed up to shovel gravel off the back of a truck.

It's not supposed to get out of the 30s tomorrow so I suspect we'll still be slippin' & slidin' here at Spenardo del Sur for another day or two.

If I squint just right, it kinda looks a little like home.

Can't prove I'm poor

There's some kind of state program here in Alabama that helps poor people pay for propane in the winter. I tried to get in on it last year but couldn't find my Social Security card. Alabama requires you to show your hard copy Social Security card for everything. I'd lost mine 20 years before moving here but never needed it for anything. Nobody ever asked to see it. But I couldn't even get a driver's license in Alabama without showing the card. Had to get a new one from Michigan.

Anyway, I tried again to get in on the free winter gas program. Chickenfight Girl gets it for her family and her elderly father-in-law. She's the one who told me about it.

Went down there today to do the initial paperwork - having found my stupid Social Security card which they didn't even ask to see today. This time, there was a different kind of paperwork I was unable show them.

My problem is that I cannot prove that I am poor.

I told them I was self-employed. They said they wanted to see my employment records. Employment records? I don't need no stinkin' employment records! This dude paid me $20. This lady paid me $20. I sold some silver jewelry. I sold some crap on eBay. I don't have any records other than my PayPal account and some chicken scratch on my calendar.

She looked at me, exasperated. There was no little box on her paperwork to check off for me. A little lightbulb went off above her head. "Do you get food stamps?"

"No."

The little lightbulb exploded above her head.

Truth is, I collect no government stipend of any kind. No food stamps. No unemployment. No disability. No nothing. I either scrape up $250 a month or stuff starts getting shut off. If I come up with more than $250, I can buy something extravagant like cheese or popsicles.

The lady behind the desk rolled her eyes and sighed, as if to say how could she help me if I wouldn't even help myself. "You really should get food stamps."

I just wanted to fucking scream "I DON'T NEED FOOD! I NEED PROPANE! ME WANT PROPANE STAMPS!"

But I kept my cool as she flipped through page after page of regulations, looking for the one that applied to me. Finally, I was told that I had to go to all the people who had paid me twenty bucks here and twenty bucks there and get notarized statements so as to provide detailed records of my income in December.

Fuck it. I may just cut more wood.