The $99 Power Washer

      YouTube has lots of videos about $99 power washers, all presented by a bunch of handy, husbandly types.  It seems like these reasonably priced, lower PSI, lightweight little gizmos are just the thing for effortlessly melting the winter's accumulation of green and black slime off of sidewalks and siding.  I picked up a Craftsman and started in on my green fence and black sidewalk.

In previous years, I mixed up a bucket of detergent and bleach and scrubbed with a stiff brush.

 

The power washer blasted the dirt off with plain water.  So far, so good.

So white!  I even power washed the rock.

      The next day, I decided to obliterate the mold on the patio.  I aimed my power washer nozzle at the wall and blew a hole in one of the blocks!

Yikes!  Yellow sand and water dripped down the wall.  My neighbor's theory is that this block had a flaw of some sort.

     I waited a couple of days for everything to dry out, then I pulled out the J-B Weld.  It took three applications to fill the hole completely since gravity caused the J-B Weld to leak out.  I filled the hole as much as possible then slapped some blue painter's tape over the opening to seal in the epoxy.  The next day, I removed the tape and repeated the process.  On the third day, I overfilled a little and blended the epoxy at the edges.

The repair looked like this.

   

Some sanding lightened the color.  A season of sunshine should fade things out so that the patch is barely noticeable.

No more mildew.  The wall is now pinky-peach and gray.  I also power washed the patio furniture, the wooden bench, the flower pot, and the red pavers under the bench.  

   

     I was on a power washing roll and decided to tackle the siding next.  I set myself up on the shady side of the house and began.  The power washer pressure cut in and out.  Water started leaking out of the intake connection.  None of the trouble shooting tips in the manual fixed the problems.  I toted the short lived power washer back to the store for a refund, and went back to cleaning the siding with a hose, bucket of soapy water, and a soft brush on a long, telescoping pole.  We're spic 'n' span around here now, but I plan on getting another $99 power washer next spring since it makes the clean up easier and faster.  Maybe a different brand will operate for more than 10 or 12 hours.  As long as I can finish all the annual sprucing up before the appliance gives out, I'll feel like I got my money's worth.     

Roving Peacock

     The local peacock recently strolled into a neighbor's yard, flew up and perched on the chimney, and carried on like a bird possessed for a half hour or so.  At 6:00 a.m.  Why?  Most likely, he was trying to attract a female.  No one answered the call, so he eventually came down and walked home.  If peahens are anything like the human ladies in my circle, I would suggest that my noisy feathered friend change tactics.  Show up at dusk, not dawn.  Bring flowers, and buy the gal some dinner.

    

     Here's what it sounds like:

 

The Partridge Inn, Augusta, Georgia

 The Partridge Inn is a hotel in Hilton's Curio Collection (independent hotels supported by Hilton).  Though it sits atop a hill, possibly the highest point in Augusta, the views are not spectacular.  The elevation does provide pleasant breezes and slightly cooler temperatures.  I did not enjoy an overnight stay, just a drink on the wonderful veranda followed by dinner.

In 1816 the building was the residence of George Walton, the governor of Georgia.  In 1836 the owner converted a portion of the house into a hotel.  Later the building was converted into a residence hotel for northerners who wintered in the south.  The property went into decline for a period then was restored and reopened as a hotel in 1910.  It has operated continuously since then.

https://lifefamilyfun.com/the-partridge-inn-augusta/#:~:text=Report%20Ad-,The%20History%20of%20the%20Hotel,Oaks%20for%20the%20Meigs%20family.

The veranda was the perfect place for cocktails.

The view was just so-so.

These lights are fueled by gas just like in the old days.

A Beautiful Outdoor Lounge

     Of course, every old building has a ghost.  This video tells the story:

The Bomb Plant

        Your average Joe or Joanne probably doesn't know much about the Savanah River Site (SRS), located on the outskirts of Aiken, South Carolina, yet, it is a very important component of the defense of the United States.  

     The bombs dropped on Japan that brought an end to the second World War, were the opening event of the Cold War - a period of political tension between the United States and Russia.  In 1949, spying verified that Russia was conducting underground nuclear explosions.  By 1950, the Savanah River Site was under construction.  We had the bomb.  Russia almost had the bomb.  Now we had to have lots of bigger, better bombs.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-announces-soviets-have-exploded-a-nuclear-device

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_River_Site

     The U.S. government purchased 310 square miles of farmland which included the towns of Ellenton and Dunbarton.  About 6.000 people were relocated.  Though the locals referred to the new facility as "the bomb plant," the plant didn't manufacture bombs.  They produced the radioactive ingredients that fueled hydrogen bombs.  Over the years SRS has gone from making bomb components to making fuel for power plants.  They also properly dispose of spent nuclear material from power plants in the United States and abroad.  Our tour guide explained that this nation's nuclear stock piles, which were manufactured in the 1980s, have deteriorated and need to be replaced.  SRS will produce materials for this replacement operation.  

https://www.srs.gov/general/srs-home.html 

https://www.energy.gov/srs/savannah-river-site

     There are lots of jokes about glow-in-the-dark alligators that live on the site.  While this is not true, it is a fact that the site has suffered contamination over the years.  Before SRS was even built Eugene Odum, a professor from the University of Georgia who is known as the father of modern of ecology, studied the area.  His involvement lead to the founding of the Savanah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL).  The laboratory is located within the Savanah River Site, and it has operated for the past seventy years.  Tours include a visit to the lab where guests attend a lecture featuring live animals native to the site.  Our presentation included a bullfrog with a history of slipping out of the lecturer's grasp.  Froggie didn't escape during our lecture, but he did urinate on the speaker and the carpet.  There were two alligators - an adorable two-year-old and a much bigger three-year-old who was getting scary big.  We saw a few snakes.  The poisonous ones were locked in plastic boxes.  A non-poisonous snake was held by the lecturer.  During the talk, the snake bit her.    

https://news.uga.edu/the-father-of-modern-ecology/#:~:text=Eugene%20Odum%20is%20lionized%20throughout,its%2010th%20anniversary%20this%20year.  

https://research.uga.edu/news/seven-decades-of-environmental-research-at-savannah-river-ecology-lab/        

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/deadly-legacy-savannah-river-site-near-aiken-one-of-the-most-contaminated-places-on-earth/article_d325f494-12ff-11e7-9579-6b0721ccae53.html

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0403485

http://governor.sc.gov/news/2021-12/gov-henry-mcmaster-unveils-savannah-river-site-settlement-recommendations#:~:text=In%20August%20of%202020%2C%20South,allocated%20by%20the%20General%20Assembly.

     Savanah River Site Tours are free.  Guest must be over the age of 18 and be United States citizens.  You have to provide your Social Security Number when you sign up for a tour.  Security is very tight.  All bags are checked.  Guests tour by bus and are monitored at all times.  No photography is allowed.  Here's the information if you are interested in booking a tour:

https://www.srs.gov/general/tour/public.htm       

     

               

        

Abbeville, South Carolina and the Burt-Stark Mansion

      Abbeville is a quaint, little place with a downtown trying to make a comeback.  There are several restaurants, a boutique hotel, an opera house/community theater, and a historic mansion.  Abbeville is known as the birthplace and the deathbed of the Confederacy.  After a meeting held in Abbeville on November 22, 1860, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union.  The Confederate cabinet held its last meeting on May 2, 1865 at what is now known as the Burt-Stark Mansion.  

The Main Street

A Building Waiting for a Business

The Belmont Inn is listed in National Register of Historic Places.  

The Burt-Stark Mansion
We enjoyed a lengthy, private tour of the mansion, the slave quarters, and the grounds.  Mary Stark Davis lived in the home until 1987.  Many of Mrs. Stark's evening gowns hang in her bedroom wardrobe.  Our docent opened the wardrobe and showed us each beautiful dress.  No photography is allowed inside the mansion.   

This is a view of the back of the house.  You can see the separate kitchen on the left.  The bumped out area on the right contains the downstairs bedroom.  This bedroom is actually two adjoining rooms divided into a winter area and a summer area.  The winter area has three walls adjoining the interior space of the house.  This makes the room easier to heat.  The summer area has one wall connected to the main house and three exterior walls, all containing windows for catching cool summer breezes.     

Redcliffe Plantation

      Redcliffe Plantation is a South Carolina state historic site.  It was built by James Henry Hammond in 1857 and was home to three generations of his descendants.  Redcliffe was a showplace for Hammond to entertain and flaunt his success.  Hammond's business operations occurred at his other plantations - Silver Bluff, Cathwood, and Cowden.  John Shaw Billings, the great-grandson of James Henry Hammond, donated Redcliffe Plantation and Hammond's collections to the people of South Carolina in 1973.  Hammond's meticulously detailed business records and revelatory personal diaries and  correspondence were not destroyed by his long suffering widow when he died.  Her actions (widow's revenge perhaps?) preserved the record of Hammond's avarice, child abuse, and narcissism.  These documents were made public in 1978.  

      James Henry Hammond was born in 1807.  James' father Elisha Hammond wanted James to become a lawyer.  James was not able to afford a prestigious law school, so he obtained his degree from South Carolina College.  He earned his living practicing law and publishing a newspaper.  He met sixteen-year-old Catherine Fitzsimmons, a shy, plain looking girl, in 1830 and saw an opportunity to elevate his social and economic status.  Catherine had a sizable dowry - the 7,500 acre Silver Bluff plantation and 147 slaves.  While Catherine believed the good-looking Hammond's professions of love, her brothers did not.  They saw Hammond for the gold digger that he was, but Catherine won out and married Hammond in 1831.

     From this point, Hammond was a planter, member of the United States House of Representatives, governor of South Carolina, and member of the United States Senate.  After Hammond's term as governor ended in 1844, he prepared to run for the United States Senate.  Around this same time Hammond's nieces, ages thirteen to eighteen, revealed that their Uncle James had been molesting them during family visits to Redcliffe.  The girls' father publicly denounced Hammond thinking that the scandal would ruin Hammond's political ambitions, and this would be the best way to punish him.  Voters' memories were short, and Hammond managed to be elected to the U.S. Senate thirteen years later in 1857.  When it came to the nieces, memories were not short.  Their reputations were ruined and none of them ever received an offer of marriage.  

     Also in 1857, Hammond published a manual for planation owners in which he outlined his methods of slave husbandry.  He recommended more food and better diets for field laborers, longer periods of breast feeding for slave babies, and more nutritious diets for slave children.  These practices would make stronger, heathier slaves who could work harder, be less prone to illness, survive childhood, and live to older ages.  He kept families together only because he believed they would be less likely to run away.  Hammond's obsessive record keeping - recording first and last names of his slaves and noting birthdates and familial relationships - has had the positive consequence of giving descendants of Hammond's slaves an easier time assembling their family trees. 

     Hammond was a strong supporter of slavery and State's rights.  He coined the phrase, "Cotton is king," believing that the entire world relied on southern cotton, and for this he reason was sure the south would win the Civil War.  He died of mercury poisoning in 1864 just before the end of the war.

     Read more about it:

https://headstuff.org/culture/history/james-henry-hammond-pro-slavery-paedophile-politician/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henry_Hammond

https://south-carolina-plantations.com/aiken/redcliffe.html

The architecture is Greek Revival style.  Moving the stairs to the side during a renovation has ruined the original symmetry. 

This prickly pear has been here since 1857. 

This is known as Magnolia Row.  The trees line the road that leads to the front of the mansion.

Ranger Brandon conducted our tour.  The building in the background is one of the slave's quarters.   

Bedrooms contained a commode ...

... and a sitz bath since the house didn't have bathrooms.

The fourth generation used the house as a vacation home and added bathrooms.  

John Shawl Billings, great-grandson of James Henry Hammond, was the editor of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines.  He bought Redcliffe and restored it after his aunt Julia Hammond Richards died.  Billings' only child (pictured on the desk), Frederica Wade Billings, died in childhood.  Since there were no heirs, Billings left the estate to the State of South Carolina.  

              

Aiken, South Carolina

      Aiken is the largest city in Aiken County and serves as the county seat.  About 31,000 people live there.  Southern Living magazine once called Aiken the "best small town of the south."  There are lots of charming shops, good restaurants, and public events.  I had the most delicious Indian food I ever ate at Taj restaurant.  I attended two open air concerts.

South Boundary Road is lined with oak trees.  This is the scene driving into town.

This crazy place intrigued me.  Is it a home or a business?  Is it a junk yard?  At night every room was brightly lit so that the whole interior was in view.  

This is a concert on "The Alley," a pedestrian only street of bars and restaurants.

     If you like sampling the wares of micro breweries, the Downtown Tap Room is the place for you.  You can sample different brews then fill your cup when you find your favorite.

So many choices ....

You get a bracelet which activates the tap.  The beer is metered, and you pay for total ounces drawn at the end of the night.

Press to wash out your cup between samples.

     

On the Road Again (Finally)

      It's been a long time since I have been anywhere but the grocery store and Wal-Mart.  I made a visit to Aiken, South Carolina my first post-Covid road trip.  

     South Carolina is known for many things.  It was one of the thirteen original colonies and one of the earliest states to ratify the U.S. Constitution.  South Carolina is also the state where the Civil War began and ended (more on that later).  James Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina and lived in Beech Island, SC near the end of his life.  The state is known for the palmetto tree, and the image of the tree appears on the state flag.  Unfortunately, the place is also famous for the palmetto bug which is just a nice name for a two inch long cockroach.

South Carolina Welcome Station on I-95
I love this folk art metal sculpture.

     Aiken is known for horse racing, polo, and steeplechase.  The Savanah River Site, located on the outskirts of Aiken, produced components for thermonuclear weapons in the 1950s, and operates today with a different mission.  There are eleven golf courses in the Aiken area.  It is a mecca for golf loving snowbirds.  

The Aiken welcome center is located downtown.   If you want folk art metal sculpture, you have to travel outside the city limits to Whiskey Road.  This giraffe is located near C. Graham Co. Welder.