Blog Cabin 2011 Coming to Mathews

This week's Gazette-Journal confirms that the DIY Network's Blog Cabin will feature a Mathews County home located on the Mobjack Bay in Susan.

The shot above is not from that house, but just play along.

Since most of the three of you who read are not from Mathews, I should explain that Susan is a place, a post office, a don't blink otherwise you've just missed it area in Mathews.

Since I no longer watch TV because I'm addicted to the internet I confess to being a stranger to Blog Cabin. Evidently the network purchases a property, fixes it up, and films an entire series around these renovations.  In the end, the house is given away to one very lucky sweepstakes winner.

This is all very, very exciting for those of us who want our own reality TV show and feel convinced we have all the makings right here under our noses who live in the county.  In addition to having a major network in our midst for months on end, the show will be great publicity for the county.  Perhaps most importantly, the show will also provide jobs and the experience of a lifetime for some of our local bloggers? contractors.  

Given the enormous culture clash these DIY'ers are bound to experience, I thought we could ease their transition by giving them some tips on how to survive in Mathews.  Let's see if we can get a good list going.  


Here is a start, in no particular order:

1.  Toss all GPS units into the Mobjack Bay, because they might actually work down there in the mud but they will not work in Mathews.  That GPS Lady thinks she knows what she's talking about, but she's full of hot air and hush puppies most of the time.

2.  Eat all the Thai and Vietnamese food you can before you arrive.  There's a delightful Thai restaurant in Gloucester, but that is probably 20-25 miles from Susan.

3. Unless you have helicopters dropping in supplies (and if you do, please request sixteen cartons of Vietnamese spring rolls to be drop-shipped over the 23076 zip code), you will drive more than you breathe.  

4.  Insects and assorted infestations are a fact of life - your life.  They will live with you.  No matter what the season, you will be overtaken by insects.  You cannot win, it's futile.

The current season is fruit flies and spiders.  Welcome them with open arms.  You might find crickets in your suitcases too.

Winter places the welcome mat out for mice, who will find your place warm and inviting.

Spring brings ants, killer mutant ants like you've never seen.  When you are overtaken by them, and you will be, consult with me.  I have the solution which involves a multi-faceted approach involving Terro and nuclear weapons.

Summer means mosquitoes, May flies and dementia horseflies.  Because we do not want to scare you out of the county, we won't talk about these just yet.

5.  Don't leave trash outside overnight.  Although bears have yet to cross the county line from Gloucester, we do have bear-sized fiddler crabs raccoons and opossums. What they don't eat they will happily and unabashedly sprinkle anywhere in a half-mile radius. If you don't want your neighbor seeing it, do not put it in your trash.

6.  You may wish to erect your own cell phone tower at the work site, otherwise just go ahead and install a land line unless you know smoke signals, Morse code or have tapped into your ESP capabilities.

7.  Relax and get ready for a slower pace of life in an isolated area with far fewer of the so-called luxuries but chock-a-block full of wonderful people and gorgeous, undeveloped natural beauty.  If you need a tour guide, CBW is your gal.

In the next edition of Tips for the DIY Network in Mathews County, we'll cover storm survival tactics and ways to entertain yourself when the current goes out and the tide is so high in the back yard you need hip boots to get to the car.

Dear Reader Three Readers - Please add to this list of things the DIY people will need to know to make their stay more enjoyable here in Mathews during the upcoming season. I'll keep a running tally and publish updates periodically.

Dear DIY Network:  You will love Mathews, and I for one think you might not ever want to leave.

Welcome.

Three Things

Sunset off Gwynns Island, October 2010

Welcome to the Three Ring Circus of my life Three Thing Thursday, where I share three things and you share three things, on whatever topic happens to come to mind.  Anything at all.

Let's begin.

1.  This Saturday from 10-4 is the Deltaville Seafood Festival, also known as the Holly Point Art and Seafood Festival except if I called it that everyone on this side of the Piankatank would be all "Holly Point Art Festival?  What?" The Deltaville Seafood Festival promises to be chock-a-block full of good things like seafood, BBQ, Blackbeard's Scallywag School (because evidently one must obtain the proper training and certification to be a scallywag), 70 artisans and craftsmen and more.

Click here for more information.

Click here for an audio clip of one of my favorite scallywags.

2a.  Much to my chagrin, I had to don shoes, actual shoes, shoes that were not flip flops or sandals--shoes!--this week because it was so cold in the mornings.  (Since about March nothing but sandals, flip flops or bare ground have touched these feet.)

2b. If I had my way I'd never put on another shoe again.  Alas, society has its rules and my workplace wouldn't take too kindly to me showing up barefoot, although nothing would surprise them at this point.

2c. Let it hereby be known and declared thusly:  I despise shoes, except when it comes to shopping for them.  And socks are straight from the devil.

3a.  Much to my utter and sheer surprise and delight, I realized today that Monday is a federal holiday! Since I am off from the paying job the next two days, I do not have to don shoes, actual shoes, until Tuesday of next week. Hallelujah. I'm considering a celebratory sock-burning bonfire this weekend, but I'm not sure if the county's burn ban has been lifted.

3b. As wonderful as 3a is, I do have to work on Thursday and Friday, just not at a job that pays.  I'm cleaning the house, doing laundry, paying bills, grocery shopping, taking kids to school, making sure they get to and from practices, cooking and feeding them dinner working on my side project which involves painstaking research and sleuthing.

3c. Still, I can wear flip flops or go barefoot if I want, and I can remind myself there's no 100-mile commute and 8.5 hours of work on Monday.   Oh, what a wonderful feeling.

Now it's your turn.

Please share three or more things, whatever you want.