Here Florence Comes...

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Updated 11:00 am, Wed September 12, 2018

• CATEGORY4
 
• SUSTAINED WINDS130 mph
 
• MOVINGNW at 15 mph
 
• WIND GUSTS160 mph
 
• PRESSURE943 mb

This is now.  11 am Wed. Sept 12.

Yesterday the path forecast was a bit different.

What will it be tomorrow?

All I know is that tomorrow (or maybe tonight) the rains will be coming.  
There also is expected afternoon rain today.

Time to get out the umbrella and raincoats!

Time to stay indoors.

Oh shoot.

An old town by the river

Bynum, NC has lost its industry by the Haw River.  But it has rejuvenated itself with artistic endeavors.

"Bynum is an unincorporated community in northeastern Chatham County, North Carolina, United States on the banks of the Haw River. Bynum is 5 miles north of Pittsboro, North Carolina and 11 miles south of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It is also known as Bynum Mill Village or Bynum Mill Hill." Wikipedia.

Driving along the main road in Bynum, you see many old buildings.

An old home that is still being lived in.

Artistic yard and porch of one of the renovated cottages.

Another artistic home...

"Bynum's most notable building is the Bynum General Store at 950 Bynum Road, Bynum, NC 27228. For many years the store, run by Frank and Louise Harris, was known as Harris and Farrell General Store. The post office, once located at an older store to the south, brought everyone in town and many nearby rural residents to the store. Retired loggers, business people, and mill workers often sat on the bench in front of the store passing on news and rumors and telling stories. The store was a natural community center and information hub. When the store and post office closed in 2006, the community formed a non-profit called Bynum Front Porch and kept the store in use as an event and community center."

The old general store is one side of a gathering place for summer concerts (see the little building to the left?

This is the stage for summer concerts...Bynum Front Porch (see events here.)

The far side of the gathering place is a bit more rustic.

"The town began life as a "cotton mill town." The original mill was built about 1872 beside the Haw River. There was a wooden dam about 1000 feet upstream and water from the mill race powered water wheels. Later the dam was rebuilt with concrete and electrical generators installed. The spinning mill was purchased by John Milton Odell of Concord, North Carolina in 1886.

In stages from circa 1890 to 1910, small two to six room houses were built on the hill above the mill and rented to the mill workers and their families. Bynum was one of the first areas in Chatham County to have electric lights because turbines provided electricity for both the mill operation and the houses. The mill workers were paid in script. The script was only usable to pay their rent or at the "company store" (also owned by the mill).

In the 1970s the county commissioners, using federal grant money, bought the 73 mill worker houses from J.M.Odell Manufacturing Company with a Housing and Urban Development grant. With the money the streets were paved, cement blocks enclosed brick piers under houses, electrical boxes were updated and each house was supplied with indoor plumbing for a kitchen and bathroom. The existing tenants, who had been paying less than $10 a month rent to the mill, were given the chance to buy their homes with favorable long-term mortgages. Many mill workers had lived all their lives in these homes. Most bought their homes. Other homes found eager buyers. Many of the mill workers, suddenly in possession of rapidly appreciating assets, sold to newcomers and bought more modern homes elsewhere. Many of the new owners were college educated younger people, musicians, craftspeople, and artists.

The mill buildings sat vacant and decaying for many years, then burned down in March, 2001. Most of the original mill houses are still standing and are now private homes. Wikipedia.

See this post HERE about the old bridges over the Haw River.  One bridge is brought to life every Halloween.  Another shows the remains of a covered bridge.

There will be consequences...

You think you've seen a lot of tourists before...but this is coming next week!

"The world’s largest equestrian event... the Equestrian Games run Sept. 11-23 at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Polk County.

The event, featuring eight world championship-caliber disciplines, is expected to draw more than 800 athletes and their horses from 71 countries, as well as some 400,000 spectators, said Carly Weilminster, spokeswoman for the Equestrian Center."

Source: fei-world-equestrian-games-2018-tryon-nc

Do you see those projected numbers? As one article said more than several times the population of Asheville and Hendersonville combined.

The interstates will become parking lots I imagine. Tyron is about 50-60 miles *an hour's drive usually, from Black Mountain. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Biltmore Estate are among the tourist attractions in this area...as well as Asheville.

But maybe I can just stay home. At least my computer gives me some touch with the world out there. I'll be looking to see what happens.

And of course these tourists will be from all over the world...they say most of the tickets sold so far have been in Australia.

North and South Carolina are going to be pressed into being good hosts. Not that I have any doubt that they can do it. But yes I do have a tiny little doubt. Oh where is my optimism today?

Riding a horse you say?

Rain can do this you know...

The old bridge over the Haw River ...but not the oldest!

 It's a walking bridge, which gets decorated for Halloween and is  also a favorite graffiti canvas.

The river was severely high, where there are usually rocks and a little white water, it was compete brown water...

Pretty nice graffiti.

This is part of an older bridge....

It was still a few feet above the water level

A few days later, we met this gentleman who works at the Chatham County Court house giving tours.  He shared his painting of the original covered bridge over the Haw River...as shown here and as remains in my photo above.  His painting also shows the normal water level of the river.

 The way the Haw River looks most summer days, as it flows under the newer 15/501 highway bridge.

The 15/501 bridge is upriver of this tree which may be carried off if the water level continues to rise.  But it didn't...not that rain anyway.

The Glencoe-Mill Dam on the Haw River...photo from the web site The Haw River Conservation.  This is not the way it looked with flooding in August 2018...but I didn't get a photo of it, sorry.  Just a solid wall of brown water flowing, and no rocks were showing.

Hello World!

I finally got out of bed without a fever, and with an appetite.  This bug has kept me fasting for 6 days...though I nibbled this and that...but the fever kept coming on and on.

So I'm glad to be back among the living again!

Catch up? I don't think that will ever happen.  But I can slowly move into the new space and time that is mine to do with as I choose.

So I'm very grateful for the attention of my local doctor.  I saw his Physician's Assistant twice already this week, and will see her again Fri. morning.  And she's provided me with drugs, as well as soothing words.  But the fever was really strong and wouldn't go down for love nor money...nor tylenol nor ibuprofen.

But my main thought today is how each symptom is being treated, with this drug or another.  Yet I'm full of different symptoms having to do with the different functions of my body.  It' got to be connected somehow.  I've always seen "side-effects" of drugs, which often didn't have a thing to do with what was being treated.

But I really wish someone would be able to treat a WHOLE ME.  I think there are some who do that, and I'm going to investigate it further.  It just makes sense than continual coughing and needing to clear my lungs of very thick mucous might have something to do with irritable bowel where there's too much fluid, and the opposite of what's happening in my lungs.  ???

So the Medical people just smile when I suggest that.  But hey, I may have hit on a new specialty...pulmonary-gastroenterology.

For now, I hope I can at least do some laundry soon!  That my big goal for this week.
See you in the funny papers...

Birthday Thoughts (after)

Did you notice I've turned 76? And changed the title of this blog, but actually I'm switching to this one, and keeping the posts from "When I was 69" under that title.  Otherwise, nobody can search for that title if I just change it.  Duh.

So moving forward from here...

I'll be doing house things today as I recover.

I drove back home yesterday afternoon and night. I've got lots of the settling back in things to do of course.  And I need to make myself take it easy.  My birthday night was horrific.

I came down with chills and fever as I went to bed.  I kept thinking, I'll be asleep and this will pass.  But what happened was many trips to the bathroom, and finally waking Martha to get some Tylenol.  That helped me sleep from 3:30 to 8 am, but I couldn't look at coffee.  I had some tea, then went back to sleep.  Later I got up for half a cup of yogurt, then back to sleep.  Basically at 4 :30 pm I decided to get up and pack up,  So by 6 I was on the road.  Easy driving on a Friday evening (avoiding big cities by driving through a few small towns.)

But let me rewind a bit, and remember the good times of my visit with Martha.

Martha petting Sable, while Sabrina enjoys her lap.

She fed me very well, and when she didn't cook, we went out to eat, and paid "dutch."  Some of the restaurants were great, some just ok.  We traveled one day to Seagrove to see potters and pottery.  We spent one day in a library and court house museum, checking up on ancestors and the history of the place she now lives.

There was a lot of rain the first day of my visit, so we probably stayed in the living room with our laptops looking for ancestors we have in common.  I found another one leading back to Charlemagne on the Rogers tree.  Or at least to William the Conqueror.

I'll give more info and photos soon!