Jenna's cure for hiccups

The other day I had the hiccups bad. I was hanging out with Jenna at her house, and she took it upon herself to cure me. She tried to scare me with some loud noises to no avail. Then after a while she suddenly started pushing me down the hall and into the bathroom while laughing hysterically. I didn't know what was happening until she grabbed my head and tried to shove it into the toilet. Her "cure" was nothing other than a good old fashioned whirly (head flushed in the toilet.) My head never made it into the toilet because I caught onto the plan and resisted with force, but the commotion of the whole thing mixed with the fear of a real live whirly killed my narly case of hiccups very quickly.
The next day Jenna commented on the matter: "You were hiccupping like it was nobody's business, and it was getting on my nerves." Then she added, "That was a pretty clever idea. Go me!"

Warning: graphic photo

A friend and her boyfriend went over to Tennessee to the boyfriend's cousin's meat processing shop and got me 5 deer hides and 5 deer heads. The hides went straight into the freezer and the heads came home with me to the campfire for and immediate "brain removal operation." It was dark so I pulled an extension cord out and plugged in a light. I laid some plastic down on the ground next to the light and laid out all of the heads on the plastic. I skinned the tops of the heads between the back of the eyes and the ears. Then one by one I put each head on a rock and smashed the skull with the blunt edge of my maul. Then the segment of broken skull was pried back with the point of my fire poker and I scooped the brains out with a spoon. At the end of the session, all the brains went into the freezer for later use (brain tanning the hides of course).
Let me comment a little about the aforementioned process. It was gruesome, and I would not call it fun. The only part I enjoyed was scooping out the actual brains, because the organ is so amazing and the texture is very unique. While I was trying to bash the skull of the first head, I almost decided I couldn't do it. It was just too violent and gruesome and I was about to draw the line. I thought to myself,
'I'll just go back to Ingles and buy more canned brains and use those.' Then I realized that would defeat the purpose of tanning the natural way. It is messed up to have access to the perfect tanning materials and choose to use them because it is too hands-on and graphic. I decided to follow through and utilize the natural brains I had in front of me. As I scooped out the brains I thought about the whole thing poetically. What was stored in those brains? The keen senses of the deer, the primal knowledge of the plants of the woods, the electrical system that controlled the graceful and swift movements of such beautiful beasts. Maybe somehow in handling the brains and using them, some of the content of the brains would rub off on me. For a brief moment I considered eating a small morsel of raw brains as a kind of sacrament, but I decided against it, because the heads already smelled a little bad and I thought of mad cow disease and other grossness...
It will probably take me quite a while to work my way through all those hides and brains, so if any readers would like to tan a hide, just give me the word...

5:00 French Broad Yellow

I went walking up to Lovers Leap late yesterday, when the light was just something else. On the way down, walking by the river, I decided to make a list of all the lovely yellow things I saw- because the late day sun was doing the yellow just right. Indulge me by reading my yellow list:
hickory
poison ivy
spice bush
gum
green briar
wild oats
river birch
beech
chestnut oak
yellowroot
basswood
a man wearing a kilt that had yellow in it (well, he was in town on my way back, but close enough)

Post Script: I went back the next day and noticed also:
witch hazel in bloom
bittersweet vine
tulip poplar
a beautiful yellow sun sinking behind the blue ridge

"I said 'ain't' and I meant it"

Jenna: It's a good thing I ain't camara shy.
Dana: What? Did you say ain't?
Jenna: Yeah, it's a good thing I ain't camara shy. I said ain't and I meant it. I said it and I'll say it again. It's a good thing I ain't camara shy!