Happening now (more or less everywhere)

 Creek bank restoration and road repair on Grindstaff Road.

Burn! (carefully)

We got to watch part of a prescribed burn up on Murphy Branch Road yesterday. It was pretty interesting. Here's a good explanation of why someone might want to set fire--carefully, under controlled conditions--to their own property. 

 

Awww...

Jada took this picture of me at the food co-op sometime this summer because she thought it was funny that I was using an Ingles bag at TTT. 

I am posting it now, not because of the goofball with the rice cakes and the boonie hat, but because look at what a sweet little place it was. Everything was so homey and tidy and tucked in. 

Look at all this great stuff! Kombu! Nori! Soba noodles! Fish sauce! Coconut milk! Gretchen's hot sauce! Jam! Sardines! Kippers!! 

And that's just a fraction of what was there.

An Excellent Crew

Jesse has been organizing river cleanup crews on Sundays. She put out a call for a big group to start removing debris from the Weibe family's farm near Toe River Campground, and more than fifty people showed up at the old co-op site and carpooled over to the farm. 

It probably didn't hurt that Thrive Appalachia announced that they would be arriving with tacos and tres leches cake. 

 

 

The job involved a lot of this

 

and a lot of this.

The overall situation is certainly daunting. But it was a beautiful afternoon, it was great to be outside with a big group of neighbors, and the stuff we picked up needed to be picked up. We do what we can.

Also tacos. 

 

Drinking Helene

Last week, Tal, Jessica, and I made it to the Clingman's Peak rainwater collection site for the first time since the storm. As we expected, there was a full bucket of Helene water waiting for us. 

Normally we go to some trouble to not touch the water so we won't contaminate it, but this water had been sitting for way too long to be a usable sample, so we decided to sample it ourselves. Despite all the trouble this storm caused, the water was delicious.

FEMA-ween

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike some folks, Eben's family has not had a good experience dealing with FEMA, so for Halloween, he decided to scare people with red tape.
 

South Toe Precinct

Hey, South Toe Precinct voters. You all got cards a couple of months ago letting you know that our polling place is being moved from South Toe Elementary to Browns Creek Baptist Church.

This is to let you know that we were supposed to be using the basement of the church, but it was damaged in the flood, so we will be voting in a large tent that’s sitting at the edge of the parking lot. It has power, a floor, heat and there are port-a-johns and handwashing stations outside.

A number of people have asked me why the polling place was moved. The answer is simple. Holding elections in schools is a conflict with the school schedule and activities. For general elections all the county schools are closed so that a few of them can be used as polling places. During primaries, the schools stay open, but the parts that are used for the election can’t be used for school that day, and it means a lot of people and vehicles are coming in and out of the parking lot and the building while school is not in session.

Both the Board of Education and the Board of Elections have been working for years to move the polling places out of the schools. South Toe was one of only two that were still using a school for the elections. My assumption is that for the 2026 election we will be using the church basement, but this year we will be in this tent provided by the State Board of Elections.