Notes from the Hollow

The cellar under our house remains a cool and damp 50 degrees if the door is kept shut. Today I found this salamander there while straightening up a pile of old flowerpots. Being winter I wondered if it might be hibernating, or maybe just sleeping if it is nocturnal. Either way, though it never moved, it didn’t appear to be dead. Careful not to disturb it (except for some quick photographs), I put the flower pots back.

I hope someone corrects me if I’m mistaken, but after consulting what reference material I could find, it appears to be a Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma macultum). I have a great book called The Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansas, but the one photograph it has of an adult Spotted Salamander looks quite unlike what I saw. I consulted with brother Erik (who has both a good store of knowledge on the topic and a copy of the Audubon handbook) and from the photograph I zipped over to Richmond he also thought it to be a Spotted Salamander. A side note that I think does indicate Erik’s interest in the subject, the band he founded is known as “The Amphibians.”

Donnie Weems circa 1961

Everyday I anxiously await the nice lady that delivers our mail, dreading, but also hoping for the recall notice from Toyota. See, I take safety seriously.

The first I heard of the various Toyota recalls had to do with brakes. I would like to get the brakes fixed on the Land Cruiser. During the “Great Ice Storm of 2009” I drove over fallen trees and branches that blocked our little road and apparently snagged something that tore loose the brake line to the rear, passenger-side brakes. Ever since, we’ve been driving without rear brakes, but the front brakes still grab good so I’ve not worried about it too much. Rarely have occasion to get out of first gear in low-range and with a top speed of five miles-per-hour stopping doesn’t take too long.

Next I heard that something might be wrong with the power steering. I went out and drove the Land Cruiser and it steered okay. I raised the hood to take a gander at the power steering components and realized it didn’t even have power steering.

Reading the news out of the UK, there was talk of electronic throttles. I doubted the throttle was electronic on the Weems Toyota, so I dismissed that with a smirk.

Tuned into the morning news on the Berryville radio station and there was some serious sounding people worrying about Toyotas having malfunctioning floor mats. I immediately dropped the spoon into the bowl of corn flakes and then frowned when the milk splashed on my white t-shirt. I raced outside and pulled open the door on the 1971 Toyota Land Cruiser. With relief I remembered it didn’t have floor mats.

I wish Toyota would do a recall I could use, like fixing the manual choke. And seat belts would be nice.

This photograph is courtesy of Sarah Weems.

99% of the snow is long gone from the south-facing hillsides but it lingers on the north-facing slopes.

Though this snow was only a few inches, it covered up my many hours of work on the road. And despite the obvious melting shown in the photograph, the road remained slick for several more days. In many spots under the slush the ice remained up to three inches thick and very hard - I broke my hoe on it. As soon as circumstance allowed, new equipment was acquired, including a pick axe that tore up the ice with a viciousness the broken long-handled hoe lacked.

As the residents of the hollow became more impatient with the limited transportation options available, I turned to heavy salting. I had used small amounts of livestock salt on the road with some success, but had avoided buying the treated commercial road salt, mostly because of environmental and financial concerns. Desperate times and all that, I purchased 150 pounds of road salt and applied strategically. After allowing it to percolate for a reasonable amount of time, I pushed aside the slush and broke the snapping and popping ice beneath. (I hadn't known that the salt would cause Rice Krispy-like sounds.)

Despite the salt speeding up the whole road clearing process, the work remained difficult and time consuming. The encroaching gloom of night didn't help matters as I cleared and pushed the resulting debris downhill, increasingly alarmed at the amount of rapidly accumulating material. Later, standing nearly knee deep in slush and broken ice as water streamed under my boots, I peered through the darkness at the mess I'd caused, but also pleased with the cleared road uphill.

After shoveling the winter pile into the ditches, I carefully scraped away what ice remained on the road with the new hoe until I realized I couldn't stand up straight. The most difficult stretch and turn in the road was cleared and I decided enough was enough. I hobbled to the Land Cruiser and loaded my tools in the back by flashlight, gingerly climbed up into the driver's seat, and turned the key. Engine now cold, the Land Cruiser refused to start, so I raised the hood and made the necessary adjustments to the choke. When the engine rumbled to life, I pulled the gear shift into first, low range, and with no headlights the Land Cruiser slowly crawled down the hill through the darkness, toward the house.

Almost exactly a year since President Obama declared the Ozarks a federal disaster area, we had another dose of winter weather. Though not quite as dramatic as the “Great Ice Storm of ‘09”, the ice and snow did hamper transportation here in the hollow. It really didn’t seem too bad at first, just a layer of snow on top of some ice. I’m not sure how much snow fell, I was lazy and never did make an official measurement, but I’ve heard it varied around here from 5 to 10 inches.

I don’t know if the snow was too deep or if the car was too low, but the belly of our 1995 Buick (it isn’t quite as sporty as it sounds) drug and the car only seemed capable of going sideways – usually into the nearest ditch. Luckily I’d followed my wife’s advice (don’t tell her I said that) and we parked the van up on the county road and I ferried passengers to and from the rest of the world in the old Land Cruiser.

The county road runs along a ridge on the eastern rim of the hollow, while our road drops steeply down to a switchback, then snakes down past the house, by the barn and follows the path of an old wagon road deep into the thick forest. This last section of road is still mostly impassable from last year’s ice storm.

The house is 4/10 of a mile down the hillside from our mailbox on the county road. It is a pretty drive coming down from the high ridge through the woods clinging to the steep hillsides. This tree coverage, though, keeps most of the hollow road to the house shaded from the sun. So, often while most of the county’s citizens are kiting down their dry roads without thought of packed winter precipitation, were still struggling to get our licensed vehicles up the steep snow, slush, ice, and mud layered road.

Since I am the hollow’s road department, a road department with a limited budget, I gather my implements of destruction and get to work. First I drive the Land Cruiser (the road department’s only vehicle) up and down to the mailbox and back, packing down the snow in places with the thought that perhaps the front-wheel drive Buick will pull out of there if the snow doesn’t drag its belly. This has worked in the past, but normally it is an overly optimistic strategy.

Next, the work becomes more labor intensive. My current weapon of choice is a common long-handled hoe. The storm from late January left slushy snow on top of ice and the hoe is handy for scraping slush and snow out of the Land Cruiser’s tracks and then chopping the ice beneath. Even after a week of above freezing temperatures, the hard layer of ice remained, though in places where the sun does occasionally warm, it melted and left a mess of soupy slush and deep mud.

Under the thick layer of mud, hidden from view, I discovered quite by accident rock-hard ice. This use of camouflage clued me in just how diabolical and ruthless ice can be. You think the enemy has been vanquished, when all along it waits, insulated from warmth by the mud, for an opportunity to once again cause havoc and despair.

And how did the ice get under the mud, or perhaps the question is, how did the mud get upon the ice? I have theories, but I don’t know for sure. This is a learning process. And as every successful military commander realizes, knowing the adversary is a weapon. So I study the ice first hand, hoe and shovel in hand, a bucket of salt at my feet, my senses sharp.

I finally noticed an obvious clue while resting a minute, breathing hard and sweating - chopping ice is hard work for someone as normally sedentary as me. When my breathing slowed and I stood motionless in the quiet, no dogs nearby making noise, I realized I could hear a surprising volume of water trickling and running. I’m only a novice woodsman and explorer, but I do know where the springs and creeks are located, and there was none nearby. With admiration for my enemy, I realized the water was moving under my feet, under the snow and layer of ice, going down the hill to refreeze in new locations, in locations I’d already cleared and thought safe. My enemy, ice, as every school kid knows, is just another form of water. Like some fantastic space-born thing from a science fiction film, ice is a shape changer. Clever.

Some horrible news from Mary Pat Boian today. As I may have mentioned in Notes from the Hollow before, Mary Pat adopted a small smart dog with distinctive looks and named him Max after Max McCaver, a main character in my novel (Murder in the Ozarks.) The horrible news part is that Max died last Saturday. He yelped and fell dead while going down the porch steps while in guardian mode, protecting Mary Pat from a strange dog. Sad news.

Last week before the snow and ice fell, I visited the Carnegie Library in town (I recommend it highly) and was returning home via Hillside, made the sharp corner onto Main Street at the Depot (stopping at the stop sign first) and headed south towards Magnetic Road. I came to a complete stop because of the coyote standing in the street. It was good sized and very healthy looking, with a definite reddish-sheen to its thick coat. Many of the coyotes I see are skinny and scraggly looking, but this one was obviously well fed.

He/she trotted out of the road and stopped to watch me. I stayed stopped to watch the coyote. We watched each other awhile and then he loped off to hide under a little bluff.

The coyote's large size and reddish coat made me think of Red Wolves, of course. But I won't get into that at the moment...

Today I was reminded by a good friend that I've not updated the Notes from the Hollow for awhile. No reason that I've slacked off, just don't seem to get around to it. I still have ideas every 2 or 3 days. I need to get back into it - there has been a lot going on around here.

There may not be any photographs for a few days. I'm having trouble with the rechargeable batteries to my camera. I don't know if the problem is the batteries or the charger.