Friday, November 20, 2009

Nobody's Home

Another day of paid work - I am grateful for massive quantities of fallen leaves - so I stopped to get a closer look at the house at the end of the holler. Nobody is home.



It is a tidy abandonment. A few boarded up windows, screen door frames on the porch and a rock by one door to keep it from blowing in the wind no doubt gave its emptiness away. It looks like it should be a home and I can picture my own grandparents living here though their home was quite a bit different.

Kind of like how my Hughes satellite internet service was the other day. Nobody was home.

I switched computers and hooked my own back up. It immediately began to talk to the Mother Brain to find out what it had missed while it was dormant. Massive uploads of updates and repairs ensued and that stinking Hughes network punished me by slowing the speed to a crawl. I thought it best to step away during my punishment so the monitor didn't end up smashed.



There were no animals in the barns and no cows in the pasture.

And when I got home late this afternoon there was no Crawford and no Collar waiting to be let in and fed. I called and called and didn't hear even the faintest stirring. Yesterday they were sitting on the front deck waiting when I arrived. Today they were no where to be seen.

When I left this morning the hunters and the surveyors were parked at the turnout. This afternoon, no kitties were home. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. Where oh where are my sweet kitties now?



Normal fluctuating Hughes internet speeds have returned. My punishment is over. The computer is still updating itself from all the data supplied by the Mother Brain and has to be restarted several times a day.

One reason to switch computers is that the other one has issues with the graphics card and some sites can cause it to freeze up. When that happens I won't visit those sites anymore. Kylee's Our Little Acre was one of the places that froze up the computer. I will have to visit her now and see what happens.



An hour after dark Crawford and Collar decided to come home. Were they hiding some where afraid to come out? Had they gone for a really long afternoon stroll? Oh why oh why don't my sweet kitties come the moment I call?

13 comments:

Carol Michel said...

Maybe the sweet kitties were off someplace with better Internet service?

Siria said...

So glad your kitties are home safe and sound!

You had a fun day of exploration!

Lola said...

Christopher, thank you. It's so sad that it stands alone & empty. It would be a perfect place for perfect harmony. Makes one wonder what happened to the occupants.
I'm glad the kitties came home. Where do you suppose they went!!!!
Surely they don't have to travel that far to catch a mouse. lol

Lisa at Greenbow said...

With the chair on the porch this place looks so inviting even though empty. It sort of reminds me of the cozy cabin with an add on.

Maybe the kitties thought you were mad at them instead of the computer so they went away until you were coooled down.

Anonymous said...

A dog, I say; you need a dog! (:
It's a shame about that house; it looks quite livable and in a beautiful spot. Great pics. I'd be interested myself if I weren't so far away!
Glad your computer came back to this world; one feels completely isolated without one these days.

bev

Christopher C. NC said...

Carol if those sweet kitties have found better internet service they need to talk. According to the Verizon man's map at the store there is wireless high speed internet across the street. I laughed at him.

Heaven only knows what those kitties are up to Siria. I also saw an old oil barrel filled to overflowing with beer cans at this house.

Lola all the kitties have to do is step outside to catch a mouse. They could even find one in the basement mechanical/tool room if I would let them in there.

Lisa it was the tidiest abandonment I have ever seen. Someone owns it for sure, but who? I think the ongoing commotion at the border still has them a bit spooked.

Christopher C. NC said...

Bev, I am so not a dog person. I couldn't bear the thought of chaining it while I was out working and such and to fence this place would be a major expense.

Compared to some of the shacks I have seen in town in full neighborhoods, this house is a mansion.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Chris, while reading "grow where you’re planted", I saw a link to top 20 favorite garden blogs. Guess who's blog is included????
sallysmom

Gail said...

I love finding abandoned homes...they are wonderful fodder for the imagination. Those naughty kittens worrying you like that~~gail some of the sites with ads hang up here, too.

Christopher C. NC said...

Hi Sallysmom. I saw that link from my sitemeter and was a bit surprised and baffled. Then I realized the credit for gardening at is finest in NC really belongs to the resident gardeners since mostly I chronicle their 30 years of planting on this mountain. My own garden is still just a dream.

Gail there seems to be plenty of old abandoned homes in these hills. I think it was the ads too, the ones with all the dancing, blinking and moving parts that overloaded the graphics card on the other computer.

sweetbay said...

Someone should live in that house. Too bad. It's a charming house and a beautiful location.

You expect your kitties to come when called?? :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Christopher,
I used to wish I had a kitty-cam when me and my boy lived on the side of Elk Mountain I know he had some great adventures. I had to put him down today after 15 years of companionship. I am so sad.

Christopher C. NC said...

Sweetbay that house could well belong to the neighborhood I work in which means it should be for sale as a lot. I think I'll go look it up on the county deed maps. Yes I do expect my kitties to come when called. I have about a 75% success rate. I did find dog paw prints down at the cabin yesterday, so my guess is the dogs where running the mountain while I was gone and the kitties hid and did not come out til after dark.

Anonymous I know the feeling. I had to put my 16 and 17 year old cats down before I moved here. They never would have survived the trip. I have to remind myself just how close they were to passing on their own from " health conditions" to make it feel right.