bent creek winter trail view

bent creek winter trail view
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

M couldn't come to Asheville this weekend, which made me sad, so I took the dogs for a long hike out at Bent Creek this morning. It was a good hike and there was still snow and ice on the trail I ended up on, which is a trail I don't often take. When I got there it was gray and cloudy and, miracle, there was hardly anyone else there. Well, I mean there was hardly anyone else there once I gave up on my first choice trail and kept on driving up the dirt road until I got to another trailhead where there was nobody, particularly not five women with six dogs on leashes. My dogs are not on leashes when we're out in the woods and sometimes that leash/no leash inequality thing really eats at the canine mind. Also, I hate Dog Nazis, who stop to lecture me about how terrible it is that I let my dogs run free in the woods. Since I pretty much think it's terrible that they never take their dogs off leash, we have a basic failure to communicate there.

We got a load of wood on Thursday night, hurrah! It's huge, giant wood though and young M broke the axe handle when he went to chop one log into smaller, more usable pieces. "We could burn that," I said doubtfully.
"Nah," he said, brandishing the sharp broken end, "Check it out. This is a perfect vampire stake. This right here is a serious Buffy weapon." And he was right. So now, I am happy to announce that my house is thoroughly protected against vampires. Just try it, bloodsuckers! We've got the stake!

In other news, I signed up for homeownership classes in March through the Affordable Housing Coalition and I talked to my friend T who is a real estate agent and I'm going, on Monday, to call some mortgage brokers and bank people to see if anyone will loan me enough money to buy something resembling a house in Asheville. I'm a little nervous about all this but I feel the time has come - and I don't want to live here and freeze my ass off forever. Even if the houses I can afford are also made of cardboard, which is likely, if I own them I can insulate them - by, like, duct taping up huge sheets of bubble wrap and then sheetrocking over that! What? I thought it up the other day! It will work! I think. Anyway, think good thoughts. I'm finally getting off my ass and motivating to actually, my god, buy a house.