A Rural King Of A Store

Took a road trip to Rural King in Kingsport yesterday.

It's quite the place. A Tractor Supply store on steroids of sort.  A BIG store with endless farm and garden supplies, clothing, hunting supplies, house hold items and even grocery type food, and all at fairly reasonable prices.

Although, they had about a dozen tubs set up to house baby chicks, ducks, geese and guineas, there were only a couple tubs that actually had residents, see below -

Just like Tractor Supply, these stores offer up these chicks as "straight run" or "unsexed".  Straight run chicks are cheaper to buy from the hatcheries, so I get why stores would chose this option but I don't understand why anyone would want to take a risk on buying straight run birds for their home flocks.  I would never, it's just not worth the risk, the time, the money or the effort to learn 3 or 4 or 5 months down the road of effort to find out you have males.

Also, the signs on these tubs listed the chicks as "mixed" breeds!  Well, I'm NOT interested in that approach either.  I want to know what breed(s) I'm committing to up front.

However, that being said, it was still SO very tempting!  

A Penny For Your Thoughts?

We took in the Ole Crow Tavern today!

It has the words "Ole" and "Tavern" in it's name, so how could we not stop in?

We were pleasantly surprised to see they had Xul's peanut butter and jelly beer on tap, so a couple very frosty 25oz mugs of this wonderful elixir pour-some-more (please)! Plus it's gluten free, so how can you go wrong, seriously -

The "L" shaped bar top is made of US coins; mostly pennies and rather cool looking!

The house made Deviled Eggs with Maple Bacon appetizer was scrumptious!  They're NOT my mothers deviled eggs but the maple bacon kicked it up a couple notches -

Pulled pork sandwich, with their house made fries was delicious too -

So, when in Kingsport, TN, stop in for a ice cold wobbly-pop and some grub!

I give it two thumbs up 👍👍

A Visiting Quartet

We had 4 visitors this morning!

They were on guard but not too skittish and seemed relaxed, as they slowly poked around and nibbled here and there.  They lingered for a while, then slowly worked their way out of site, over the hill -

No gardens or flowers for them to raid today; so today they were welcomed guests.

Going Once... Going Twice...

On my way back from our farm this afternoon, I stopped in at a live stock and small animal auction in Telford, right on 11E, which is run by the WJ Auction Company LLC.

The had an ark full of different animals scheduled to be auctioned off today. The smaller animals, e.g. chickens, ducks, rabbits, etc. were in mostly wooden crates, so seeing the critters ahead of time is impossible and there were oodles of them!

I would have loved to stay to see everything but thought it best to leave before they got started selling, to remove any temptation of buying animals I'm not prepared to transport, house and feed.  In time...

There were oodles of what looked like pigmy goats -

Here were my two favorites of the bunch - 

Two Jennie mules AND a little Highland bull -

A Jack and a Jenny mule -

And rabbits.  Lots and lots of rabbits -

Quail -

Pigeons, Guinea fowl and chickens, oodles of chickens -

There were also geese, ducks, pheasants, pigs, sheep and cow.

I was in my happy place.

The auction is held every Saturday, so rest assured that I will be somewhat of a regular once we get moved into our new house and settled!

Orange On Red

I picked myself up some orange tire covers yesterday.

They really POP, don't they?!  

My goodness, when this red clay gets wet, it gets sticky and seems to expand. It fills the cracks and crevasses of boots and tires, and very difficult to removed.  However, the tires are a bit easier to shed the mud, as it goes fly'n the faster you go.

Red clay is pervasive across Middle and East Tennessee, often requiring specific engineering considerations for construction due to its expansion and contraction properties.

More East Tennessee learning

Nothing In Your Life Has Been Random

Gravel Driveways Because Silence Is Suspicious

The first layer of gravel has been spread on the driveway!

This is a BIG milestone, which should prevent any more delays on the house delivery scheduled for Monday the 23rd -

Things are moving forward and taking shape!

Miss You

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss my old house, alas -

But NOT the snow that has fallen since I departed.

Towing The Line

We continue to make some impressive progress clearing the overgrowth from the barbed wire fence line running along the west side of the property.  We took advantage of the weather change; sunny with warm temps, and spent a couple days earlier this week getting our work and exercise in.

It's difficult to really see the progress in the below pics but in person, it's very noticeable -

We've started, what will become, a burn pile with much of the brush, there's just so much -

The tangles and overgrowth are years in the making, so it's taking some oomphs, ouchies and booboos but progress is showing!

We'll need to perform some repairs on the barbed wire that runs along this area, as a good section was damaged by the machine the crew used to take down a number of big trees along that fence line.  It was expected and unavoidable really, in order to accomplish what we were after. 

Phone A Friend

💩

Below The Floorboards

The snow's all melted in Limestone and the red clay has dried enough to allow more progress to be made at the ole homestead!

The crew was finally able to spread the crushed stone around the footers and where the house will eventually sit atop of -

Before -

After -

The house delivery has been pushed out two weeks due to the weather, UGH!  Fingers crossed Mother Nature doesn't throw us any more curves, so we can get the house in place.

More Smack Than a Screen Door in a Windstorm

Friday nights here in East Tennessee are all about Midget Mayhem Wrestling, or at least this past Friday night was and OH what fun it was!

There was a huge turnout; the place was packed -

They kicked off the event with the singing of the National Anthem, with the entire place joining in, then they were off both in and out of the ring.

The littles were a fly'n -

The coup de grâce was an all hands free for all, with even "Mama", pictured ringside above, and her rolling pin taking part -

I don't recall their names but the dude I affectionately referred to as "25 Cent" (I mean he looked very much like the rapper 50 Cent... but smaller 😂) was the last dwarf standing!

Photo ops with the mighty wrestlers, rear view -

They even auctioned off the below trash can prop that was used to clunk and bash little heads during the events.  Someone in the audience actually paid $350.00 for that, which was also autographed -

This organization seems to support and raise money for veterans. Half the raffle take goes to veteran organizations, as do the proceeds from the various in-ring props auctioned off during the event.

The event was very entertaining and well worth the price of admission. We all had a great time!

Again, welcome to East Tennessee!

Where'd The Middle Syllable Go?

Phonetic spelling, crass and unsophisticated, maybe it was a bad telephone connection when calling to place the order or simply a common pronunciation in some places  -

Which do you prefer - Greg-o-ry (3 syllables) or Grey-ry (2 syllables)?

Welcome to the South!

Old Oak Taproom

We found another hidden gem, the Old Oak Taproom, located at 665 Erwin Hwy in Tusculum, a craft beer bonanza -

 A couple cold beers, a couple Black-N-Blue burgers that hit the spot and a magic 8 ball -

Too many beer options to chose from but we found one that fit the bill -

A nice little eatery with great beer selection. The bartender was super nice and friendly, and provided us with several beer samples in helping us decide on which to get.

Where's The Road

Here are a couple pics of what Oakdale Road looked like a couple of days after the snow storm!

There was no indication that a plow had passed through, rather it looked packed down by through traffic only. Slick and slow going.

Heading up -

Heading down -

Welcome to the country!