Mountain Folk..meeting the neighbors

The first few days after arriving here in the Appalachians were spent unpacking. Trying to find a "home" for things in a new house is always challenging, especially when you are a tad OCD like I am. By the end of week one, I was ready to take on the yard work, which had obviously been neglected since last spring. Going from a small residential neighborhood to a half acre yard, I began to wonder if I bit off more than I could chew...at least at first.

..the front yard

I opened the shed and gazed upon the lawn mower, wondering if being "self propelled" meant it would magically do the work. So... all I had to do was hold on as it glided up and down the rolling hills (and over the rocks) of the sprawling yard? I looked over my shoulder and quickly realized I was fantasizing. Rocks were protruding from the 6 inches of grass almost everywhere I looked. Let's be real, I get freaked out if I run over a heavy twig with the mower! What to do...what to do. Well, I could always use the weed eater. After all, I could do the entire yard with it at my old house. But wait.... it's electric. No problem! I have 150 feet of extension cord and there was an outdoor electrical outlet. Yes, that'll do it.....sooooo

...I untangled the 150 ft. of extension cord and got to work.

Ummm...mow??

Trying to weed eat on a slope, with protruding rocks and unidentified thorny "things" was more challenging than I had imagined. After 15 minutes of profuse perspiring while stopping and looking at the uneven mess I was making, my next door neighbor (house in the background .. photo above) walked over. After introducing himself, he asked (in a very kind way) what the hell I was doing. I explained that I was concerned about tearing up the mower and he offered the use of his "tractor" if/when ever I needed it. I must have had a blank expression on my face and he began to laugh and offered to cut my grass when he did his own being it would "..only take a few extra minutes". I hugged him, offered him gas and/or payment (which he politely refused) and gladly accepted his offer. He's been cutting my grass ever since, though I manage to do the weed eating (in the appropriate places), tend to the garden and suffer with a bout of poison ivy now and again without much effort.

...the "road" to my house. After 25 yards, it's about 6 ft wide :)

The next day, 3 women stopped by and introduced themselves, pointing up the road to show me which of the sparsely placed homes were theirs. Within a few weeks, most everyone on the 3/4 mile long "road" (if you want to call it that) I live on stopped by, waved, offered assistance or otherwise made it clear we (my sissy and I) were welcome to the mountain.  One neighbor we have nicknamed "The Handy Man" came by a few days ago to spray my gravel driveway for weeds. He helped me identify several trees I had been wondering about (see the Gardening tab above) and gave me a little history about the mountain and the 2 or 3 families that have lived here for 3 generations.  We also met a kind man named Dave at the tiny stone church up the road last Sunday. He stopped by on his golf cart yesterday with some cabbage from his garden and identified some berries I was about to hack down by the creek. Turns out they are wild raspberries! Needless to say, I am so very grateful to have such warm, helpful and knowledgeable neighbors to guide me on my new adventure.

Wild Raspberries! At least 20 bushes of them growing next to my creek :)