Local Happenings and Updates

…taking a break from our early June road trip to St. Louis Missouri via Owensboro Kentucky.  Taking it easy on this post, just covering happenings in the neighborhood.

When we left for our backroads adventure, this is what the new house across the street from us looked like…a long way to go!

This photo was taken of the same house on the evening we returned from our road trip…10 possible work days after the first photo.

Laurie took this photo of the house 6 days after the previous photo.  Once the framing is up and the trusses are installed, basic construction seems to move at lightning speed!

We’ve met the both the builder and the owner of the property who’s having the house built.  This is an investment for the property owner and he’s planning to sell it early this fall.  Our new neighbors will be a mystery until that happens…

As for the builder, we had a knock on our door one day recently and it was the builder/contractor.  He told us that he’d backed into our mail box and he wanted to let us know that he’d have it properly repaired asap.  In the meantime, he’d made it usable.

Repairs were completed as promised!  It’s been hard to find anyone willing to do smaller jobs in this housing market, but Laurie took matters into her own hands and walked over to the building site and asked if anyone working was an electrician.  It turned out that the builder’s brother was an electrician and he’s already fixed one of our electrical issues for us.  He also provided us with another fellow who is going to do some minor structural work for us. 

Conclusion: There are some tangible advantages to having a home built across the street!  It’s not all bad…

Very recently we headed up US Hwy 411 to visit a nearby nursery and landscaping company.  Just north of Vonore at the intersection with TN Hwy 72, we came across this serious looking accident.  Anytime a motorcycle is involved, it can easily be deadly…although it didn’t appear to be the case in this incident.  As you can see, that old pickup truck took quite a hit and that black car in the first picture looks like it was totaled!  In the last photo, the gentleman sitting on the guard rail doesn't look too happy...

It’s been a long time since either of us has been in an accident but this is a cautionary tale…especially given our penchant for road trips.

After working our way past the accident, we arrived at our destination, the Tellico Landscape and Garden Center at 7300 US Hwy 411 in Greenback Tennessee.  A couple of our boxwoods had ‘bitten the dust/croaked’ with the severe freeze/cold weather sequence that took place here in December.  The boxwoods lasted for almost 14 years… In any case, we ordered our replacement bushes, installation still to be determined. 

While I didn’t take any photos of the nursery, I did take a photo of the owner’s handsome dog.  This is a Shiba Inu, a breed not seen too often in the USA.  While there are 600,000 Shiba Inu in the world today, these dogs almost became extinct during World War II due to a combination of a post-war distemper epidemic and food shortages.  The Shiba Inu was declared to be a National Treasure in Japan back in 1936.  Here in the USA, it is ranked as the 42^nd most popular breed.

To find out more about the Tellico Landscape and Garden Center, to go Tellico Landscape and Garden Center | Greenback TN | Facebook.

Although construction has slowed down a bit, homes are still going up all around us.  It appears that as long as a patch of woodland is close by, the flocks of turkey haven’t abandoned the neighborhood.  This group of Toms or Gobblers appeared to include both mature birds and a number of ‘young fellows’.  They worked their way across the road in front of us and then partook of whatever they could find in that relatively new lawn.

More wildlife!  Laurie was out in the backyard when she spotted this little fellow.  He/she is a box turtle.  Box turtles are characterized by having a shell that’s shaped like a dome.  It’s hinged at the bottom, which allows the animal to close its shell tightly to escape predators.  These turtles commonly live over 20 years with some verified cases when their lifespan exceeded 40 years.  They rarely exceed 6 inches in length.

Box turtles are omnivorous, eating such things as snails, insects, berries, fungi, slugs, worms, flowers, fish, frogs, salamanders, rodents, snakes, birds and eggs.  Apparently, this particular box turtle also liked the red grapes that Laurie provided for a snack.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave