Pawpaw Holler Home

One of the best ways to lower your electric bill is to not use electricity.

(It can be done, but I’ll tell you about that another time.)

Here are a few ways we keep our electric bill low.

• No dryer. I told you all about that already.
• We use only cold water to wash our clothes. (Most stains come out better in cold water anyways.)
• No electric heat. We use a woodstove for heat. If you can cut your own wood you will save even more money.
• No air conditioning. We use fans and keep the windows open in the summer time.
• No microwave.
• Non-electric kitchen gadgets. I don’t own an electric can-opener, potatoes are mashed by hand and we even do beating and whipping with a whisk instead of an electric hand-mixer. I have never owned a food processor, I chop everything up with a knife. (I do have a good set of knives and know how to sharpen them!)
• No curling irons or blow dryers. (We do have one blow dryer but it’s used for thawing out pipes in the wintertime!)
• Gas stove. It has cost us less money to use a propane cook stove than an electric one, but the price has gone up over the last year. (One of our goals for this year is to build an outdoor, wood-fired oven.)
• We only have one television. Does everybody really have to have their own? Television can be a big time-waster, too. We don’t own any video game consoles either.
• Unplug stuff. Even if they’re turned off, electric devices draw power as long as they’re still plugged in.

Warning: A lot of these things will cost you more time and physical labor… but they will save you money.

Denese

All of East Tennessee had a snow day today! All the school systems, several colleges, private schools, some businesses, roads, government offices and even Dollywood were closed.

Icy Roads Cause School Closures

White Knuckle Driving Awaits Motorists

Most Roads in Smokies Closed

Maybe another one tomorrow, it’s snowing again. Lacy went out this afternoon. He says Wears Valley Rd. is fine but the back roads are still real slick outside of Townsend.

Closings for tomorrow, so far:

Volunteer TV SnoGo Closings

We made snow-cream this afternoon…yum!

Denese

This is what it’s doing right now.

Should I?

Snow Cats

Denese

In case anyone is wondering what happened to me yesterday, it was too cold!

Our little ol’ cabin is drafty and the floors get really cold, especially where I have the computer. Yesterday morning started out at 5 degrees and warmed up to 20, which would’ve been fine, except for the wind…it found every crack in the house!

Our little cabin (under re-construction)

So, we sat by the stove and read books and watched old westerns yesterday.

Today started out a little warmer…11 degrees.

As cold as it is here, though, I know it’s a lot colder and snowy up North and I really feel for all of you up there. Hope it warms up for you all soon.

Well, my feet are freezing again, so I’m off to sit by the stove for a while. Later on, when it warms up some, I’ll post them some free e-books I found.

Denese

Good morning, no snow here today. That’s what usually happens when it’s predicted, if they hadn’t said anything about it, we’d have probably got some! We don’t really need any snow so soon after the flooding anyway.

Speaking of the flood, we didn’t have it bad here in the holler, the worst part was keeping the leaves and rocks clear the night it started, until the creekbed was washed out.

Yesterday we had to clean out the ditches on the side of the road and my husband had to clear two tiles out on his way in. I guess he’ll be doing roadwork this weekend.

Our chicken pen.

Behind the cabin, towards the Foothills Parkway. They’ve been working up there, I wonder what all this rain did to it? It’s slid off before, in the very place they are re-building.

It was worse down below us.

One death blamed on drenching rainfall; three drivers rescued from flooded vehicles

Flooding covers Cades Cove roads; loop closed

Storm brings record rainfall

Smokies close Cades Cove, see 3 1/2″ of rain in some spots

I’m glad it’s over, for now. We usually see this in March or July…not January!

Denese

Good morning.

The big news around here this morning is the flooding.
Our county schools are closed, roads are flooded and we’ve had rock slides.

Rainfall causes school closings, sets record

Authorities evacuate areas around Little Pigeon River

High tide threatens homes evacuates families in Sevier County

Floods follow record rainfall; schools, roads, Cades Cove loop closed

My husband called on his way to work and said it’s a mess out there.
Our creek is over the road in two places before it leaves the holler,
the creek is over Wears Valley Road between here and Townsend, and Dark Island on Little River has roads flooded and the water is around the piers on some of the houses there.
The river is about 8 feet from the bottom of the swinging bridge at the wedding chapel and up around the piers on the house above it.

Carrs Creek, Lovers Lane and Old Walland Highway are flooded, too.

He is supposed to call me back when he gets to work but I haven’t heard from him yet, he has to cross another creek twice to get there. The little bridge might be washed away!

I took some pictures of our creek and I’ll get them uploaded and posted here in a bit.

Anybody reading this from another part of the county? How is it over your way?

Denese

It sounds like there’s a river outside my window!

It has been raining hard all day and the whole East Tennessee area is under a flood warning.
Our creek hasn’t run like this in over 5 years!

Usually it runs underground part of the way down the holler but it’s presently about 2 feet deep and rushing down the mountain.

Every now and then I can hear a big rock go rolling down.

Our creek is fed by several springs on it’s way out of the holler, it then joins another, larger creek before emptying into Little River.
I can only imagine how it is in Townsend or Maryville, I haven’t heard.

There went another rock!

I just hope it doesn’t flood like it did in 1994, that one washed houses away.

I’ll have an update and pictures of our “rushing mountain stream” in the morning.

Denese

Good mornin’ all!

It’s very foggy up here this morning, I can’t even see our chicken coop!

To some people it looks a little spooky but I think it’s beautiful. (They don’t call it the Smoky Mountains for nothing!)

This last picture is not of the fog but it is so pretty I had to share it. It was taken the morning of December 24th.

Hope you all have enjoyed these.

Denese