#267 Tanglewood Winston Salem to wait out the Hurricane with my Sister Cheryl

At Tanglewood, we visited with my sister Cheryl and were aware of the hurricane and send a text to Savannah. She was fine, a little scared, but safe. As it turns out they would have no electricity for 7 days or more. There's a good story to be told there about how she survived and managed as the water was about knee-deep in all of Wilmington for at least a week. I-40 was closed. They didn't have a gas grill to cook with. They used the fireplace with fake fireplace logs I had given them. She worked at Wendy's and way before the town was running again they opened the drive-through good to have some burgers for the masses. She makes a little money and her manager liked the willingness and she got a lot of brownie points for showing up when no one else would. It was just her and the manager running the store. Her boyfriend Isaac got in on the mix as a helper and did a working interview for a few days. Wendy’s decided to hire him part-time because of his efforts during the hurricane.

Tanglewood with my sister pretty was uneventful, but lots of rain. I don't know how well I would handle the great northwest where it rains for 6 months. Just three days of continuous rain got to me a little bit. It was so monotonous. In Washington, I hear it's more of a slow drizzle for 3 months. The only thing worth noting is that we had a nice visit with my sister. She mentioned something about her doing some work outdoors on the flower beds. I mentioned I could help with some mulching.

The best way to keep the weeds out is to put some landscape fabric down and then mulch.

I did some math and decided we needed 60 bags. We went to the Home Depot or whatever and bought a whole pallet of mulch. Using a forklift they put the entire pallet on my truck. She got a big kick out of how the truck could do about whatever you asked it to do. We strapped it down and she commented on how I was barefoot with a rope. I don't wear shoes much unless I just have to. I've always enjoyed the way the Earth feels on my feet. I feel like the more I wear no shoes the tougher my feet get. I ever got in your pinch where I needed to run a mile with no shoes, I'd be ready you know. This next part is silly almost racist. I remember reading a story in the fourth grade about a guy who was a cowboy out west and he got into Blackfeet Indian Territory. He was captured and they were going to kill him because you know things were bad back then. Somehow escaped but had to run for a mile through the desert with lots of cactus. It nearly just tore his feet all apart. I believe at the end of the story he made some comment that he wished his feet had been tougher. Ever since I thought I better keep my feet tough just in case I have to run from the Blackfeet and I've been doing so ever since. There's like a quarter inch of thick callus on the bottom of my feet so that I'll be ready if I ever have to run from the Blackfeet. That's what I mean by racist. It's weird that I have to put down a race of people just because I like tough feet.

I laid down a bunch of landscape fabric and we did it in about a day maybe 4 hours. Then we put down quite a lot of mulch and my sister did give me a hand but her foot has a lot of arthritis it was hard on her after a while. She is scheduled for surgery in December and she was pushing herself pretty hard. I told her I planned to come back and be helpful in December when she had her surgery. I was going to do this and that to the yard. Eventually, I aerated it and reseeded it with rye for the winter. That was about it for Tanglewood.