At a crossroads digging trenches in the back, and Independence Day
It’s been a busy day around Dahlonega. On Sunday we went out to explore an hour or so to the North East, very close to the South Carolina border. There are a few wineries around the area, so we called in on two of them, Tiger Mountain and 12 Spies. Tiger Mountain has been around a relatively long time, and had some good wines. Their restaurant also has good reports for Sunday lunch – we must make an effort to come here earlier next time. By the time we left Tiger Mountain storm clouds were brewing up over the mountains, and it was coming down fairly steadily by the time we reached 12 Spies. A newer venture (with a strong biblical theme), it will take a while for the vines to get properly established. The owners take an economical approach to winemaking, using large plastic agricultural tanks as fermenters. Not entirely sure if this will produce a wine with keeping properties, but it’s a new approach to me!
This Saturday we went out “Antiquing”, a popular pastime round here. Visiting all sorts of stalls and shops selling what are purported to be valuable historical artifacts. If you are into collecting plastic lunch boxes or rusty garden furniture, you may find a bargain – but most of what is presented is unimaginable rubbish. We did find a shop where the owner has a sister living in Switzerland who buys things there and ships them over in bulk for sale in rural Georgia – some genuinely less authentic items (and many at a really excessive price).
During the week a tropical storm brewed up off Florida, eventually turning into the first hurricane of the season, named Arthur. We are far enough inland not to be directly impacted by it, but it did cause a sudden and welcome change in the weather. The temperatures dropped a little, but humidity was seriously reduced. We have had nearly a week of continuous good weather since then. One benefit of the good weather was that Fourth of July festivities in Dahlonega were not washed out, as has happened in previous years.
On the Build site
Outside the house, things are happening. The septic tank has been set in place and buried (although Brock the plumber has been having problems with his aged digger). A long trench winding through the woods was also dug. Into this, large perforated plastic pipes (about two feet in diameter) buried to make the drain field. The inspectors came along at the end of the week and signed it off as fit for purpose and not likely to pollute the local creek. Apologies if this is too much information of a delicate subject! There was a bit of a traffic jam of diggers on Monday as both the septic system excavations and a trench for conduits for electricity and broadband cables were going through the same space. However, all went well, and the two pipes for cables sunk into the ground. To get the cables pulled, the diggers used a very sophisticated approach to get a cord from one end to the other of the 150 yard pipes. No, not a tame hamster – tie a plastic shopping bag to a spool of heavy twine, stuff it into the pipe, and apply a portable vacuum cleaner to the other end. The string whips down the pipe fast enough to give you a nasty rope burn. The electricity company are due to pull the power cable at the start of the coming week.
Inside the building, trimming the house (architrave on doors and windows, skirting boards and the like) is drifting along slowly. So is installing the cabinets – the cabinet makers have been overwhelmed by the amount of new work they have taken on and one key worker with a broken elbow. So the fitting crew is rushed from job to job, and not finalizing anything. There is a deadline fast approaching – we hope to have the painters (inside and out) very soon. So the trimming has to be complete by then. And all the little unfinished exterior bits must be fixed. And since painters need light to see what they are doing, we need interior lighting, which in turn needs the new mains power.
There is pressure on us too from the painting deadline – we need to get all the colours sorted out. Outside we are already decided, but interior colours is another matter. Work to be done on that in the coming week, buying sample pots and painting foam boards to try out in all the rooms.
Robin’s Thoughts on America
Continuing my intermittent Thoughts, Likes and Dislikes section, here’s my personally opinionated thoughts for this week on life in USA.
History as seen from two viewpoints
Winston Churchill famously said that “History is written by the victors”. That is not entirely true – the two sides of any historical event is often presented very differently depending on which side you are come from. At the time of US Independence Day, it may be illustrative to review a crucial turning point in Anglo-American relations – the Boston Tea Party.
The American explanation of this event is clear and simple. The oppressed colonials were infuriated by the onerous burden of taxation imposed by the British Government on tea imports. Disguising themselves as Native Americans, a group of patriots stormed a British vessel in Boston Harbour and threw a large consignment of the hated tea into the sea. Boston Harbour was blockaded by the British navy in retaliation, and this was the trigger for larger uprising under the banner of “no taxation without representation”, inflamed by brutal British repression, and the rest is history.
The other side of the Atlantic a different story is played out (though usually sotto voce to prevent upsetting American sensitivities). The East India Company (in which the British Government has a significant stake) was going through a rough patch. To prop up this failing enterprise, the British Government halved the duty on the luxury item of tea (on which the East India Company depended), intending to increase company revenues through increased sales. Whilst tea drinkers in both Britain and the American colonies might be happy at the price reduction, it infuriated tea smugglers in Boston who found that the bottom had fallen out of their lucrative trade. They tried to undermine this by destroying legally imported tea. Even George Washington (yes, that George Washington) strongly voiced his disapproval of “their conduct in destroying the Tea” and believed the perpetrators should compensate the East India Company for the damage caused.
Whatever the truth on either side, a patriotic gesture or a criminal conspiracy, the blockade to seek compensation for the destroyed cargo was the starting point for what became the conflict leading up to the Independence Day parade in Dahlonega this week.