Not All Beaches and Camellias Here

Bright and early yesterday, Rosie went into Mouse Pointer Pose in front of the dishwasher. 

 What?

We thought we took care of that last winter by filling every possible opening under there where a mouse could get into house!  Guess not.

Having done her part by pointing out the invader, Rose had a kibble snack and returned to her morning nap.

The Writer got his gloves and proceeded while what should have been simple (reach under dishwasher, grab trap with gloved hand, take outdoors, return to making coffee) turned into a Project.  Capital P.

As his hand approached the trap, the mouse dragged it to the right — and under the floor of the cupboards, out of reach.  

Bummer.  

Poor guy hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee yet.  (The Writer, not the mouse.)

The only thing to do was to carefully take the wood trim strips off at the bottom of the cupboard, then delicately pry the floor board up as far as possible to reach in without disturbing the mouse or the plumbing.  

Fortunately mouse and trap did not continue its sashay to the right because that would have required prying up many more boards!  

Once the mouse was out, a trip to Walmart was in order to get more stuff for further mouse-proof sealing.  By the time everything was said and done, scrubbed with bleach and put back to rights, it was lunchtime! 

Five hours to empty a mousetrap.  

I
Our hero

Oops!

My hero!

For All My Frozen Friends

Do not despair! 

 I offer proof that the Ice Age has not returned and spring WILL come ... 

My yard is full of camellias.

Seven big, round bushes, seven to nine feet tall, six feet and more across,

Some blossoms nearly as big as my hand.

The bees are hungry and the bushes a-buzz with their industry.

I read that spring travels north 13 miles per day, or 1.9 mph.  

Hang in there!  It’s coming your way!

The Oldest ... Everything!

  We have driven past St Augustine, Florida, dozens of times and wished we had time to stop. Last week we made a special trip to see The Oldest Continuously Occupied City In America.  Hm, not only is the city “the oldest,” but so was every other little thing in town!  I’ll show you what I mean but first a little history.

  The area of St. Augustine was claimed for Spain by Ponce de Leon (statue on the right) in 1513.  Fifty-two years later Pedro Menendez de Aviles set sail in 11 ships with 2000 people, including 1000 soldiers, 200 sailors and some 250 wives and children, to establish a proper town.  Due to mass defections along the way, only 800 arrived to do the work!

 

  In 1586, British pirate Sir Francis Drake paid a visit and sacked and burned the town.  After that and several other devastating fires, a fort and new city walls were completed, built from (fireproof) coquina, a rock formed under the sea made of tiny little coquina shells.

Above, a coquina city gate built in 1739. 

Left, coquina rock construction.  The mortar was made using lime from burnt crushed oyster shells and sand.

  Next we have the Oldest House in St. Augustine.  The first house on this site was built around 1650; this one was built of coquina stone construction and cedar beams in 1702, or parts of it were anyway.  There have been quite a few additions and changes over the years.  

Aviles, The Oldest Street in St. Augustine

 Probably the Oldest Cat in St Augustine, on a very old coquina garden wall.

  The afternoon we arrived, the sun was shining and the temperature was 84 degrees.  The next day, our sightseeing day when we had a tour booked, it was pouring rain and the temperature had dropped into the 40s!  You seriously didn’t think a little rain and numb fingers would stop us though, did you? Of course not.  For 2 1/2 hours our tour guide regaled us with stories of The Oldest This, The Oldest That, and The Oldest Every Other Thing.  We held back the giggles until we were walking back to our hotel and saw this sign.

Come on, St Augustine!  The Oldest Mini Golf Course — TOO MUCH!  

Entrance to the Bridge of Lions

 The history was fascinating and St Augustine is beautiful town.  My photos don’t reflect the wonderful architecture because it was a gloomy, rainy day and hard to take pictures.  

Every Day Should Be About Love

  We had a little Valentine getaway this week so today I am catching up on laundry and reading blogs. I will be back in a day or two to write about our trip, but I wanted you to see this house in St. Augustine, FL, decorated for Valentines Day.

Did you notice the little sign in the foreground?  

  We saw similar signs in the windows of businesses in Flagstaff, Arizona last summer, and now in yards all the way across the country, in St. Augustine, Florida, and wondered about them.  

  Come to find out, there is a neat story behind them. In 2017, a little Jewish boy made the sign for a protest at O’Hare Airport in Chicago of Trump’s attempted Muslim ban.  A photographer caught him and a young Muslim girl exchanging smiles in the photograph below and the photo appeared on the Internet.  It has inspired a campaign against hate that has spread across the U.S. and all around the world. 

  The Hate Has No Home Here Project encourages  communities to declare their homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship to be safe places where everyone is welcome and valued.  

  Their website tells you how to download or obtain free signs if you are so inclined, and you can buy them on Amazon.

   

What a wonderful message of love, 

for Valentines Day and every day of the year!

  

The Glendale Mill

•   After the War Between the States, cotton textile mills became the predominant industry in South Carolina. In upstate SC, old mill ruins still dot the countryside wherever  water power existed to run them.  
•   One such ruin, along with the ghost town that once housed its workers, is the Bivingsville Mill and Bivingsville, later renamed Glendale Mill and Glendale.  

•   The mill opened in 1838 with 1200 spindles and 24 looms and 58 workers. It was powered by a 26-foot water wheel, turned by damming of a creek, and produced a plain undyed cotton cloth.
• A community church where school was taught on weekdays for a few months of the year and 12 homes for workers were built. The mill owned the houses and rented them to the workers.  
•  During the Civil War, Glenville Mill produced goods for the Confederacy, including wooden shoe soles. After the war, during Reconstruction, 125 workers were employed and the town continued to expand. The Mill also supplied materials for military needs during the First and Second World Wars.

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•   A new mill store was built in the late 1800s and workers were paid in scrip that could only be used at the company store. A post-office, barber shop, shoe shop, and a small lunch room were located in the community  building (left), the only town building still in use today.  

  By 1946 Glenville had become a community with 800 residents and 158 mill-owned houses. The houses had electricity, cold running water, and indoor bathrooms consisting of an old-type commode with the water tank mounted above. 

•   A textile mill was not a pleasant place to work. Cotton dust caused respiratory illnesses and discomfort, the work week was 66 hours or more long, and the pay was as much as 50 percent lower in the South than in New England textile mills. Manufacturers made use of child labor, commonly hiring entire families. Children as young as six were working in the mills, and there are reports of even younger ones. The 1900 census reported that thirty percent of South Carolina mill hands were ages ten to sixteen. Children under 10 worked in the daytime and those 11 and older worked graveyard shifts. They were valued because of the dexterity of their small hands and their ability to get small fingers into little spaces within the machines.  
    The photos below are from a publication by the National Child Labor Committee called Child Labor in the Carolinas. They were taken by Northern reformers to expose conditions and support of making and enforcing child labor laws.
    This machine is a spinner.  It says below the photo that children of widows or of disabled workers could work until 9 pm while other children had to quit at 8 pm.

  These children are gathered for a photo at the Newberry Mill, a mill town near Glenville. It says below, “The unguarded wheel and belt at the left are sinister neighbors for little girls’ arms, skirts, and braids.  There was no factory inspection in South Carolina.”

  This little girl is seven years old and an orphan. She had been working in this mill for a year and a half.  

  Glenville Mill continued to produce cotton cloth until 1961 when foreign competition forced the closing of almost all the US textile mills. One hundred eighteen of the company houses were sold to private owners and the businesses, except for the post office, closed. 

  In 2004 a fire destroyed most of the mill building.

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  The lawn of the once-beautiful mill owner’s family home is now a junkyard for old cars.  
  
  
  
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•   Glenville Shoals that once powered the mill is now a small park.
  
  Wanna buy a mill tower and open a B&B?  
• I love the fourth bullet point on the ad:
• Immense community gratitude at preservation