Hill Country Living
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Hill Country Living
By Coulter Fussell
I woke up this Monday morning and the temperatures were very near the 40’s. Yesterday, the high was 86. ‘Tis the season for jackets with flip-flops and cook-outs with soup. While it’s hard to dress for this weather and I’m in a constant state of flux about the inside-or-outside placement of my house plants, I do love that this time of year provides some meteorological excitement.
It’s a fine line, though. You don’t want too much meteorological excitement as we are teetering on the first days of tornado season. The big storm we had a week or so ago knocked down a whole new slew of damaged limbs that were still dangling in the tree tops from the ice storm. My yard wound up with almost as much debris from this recent thunder storm as it did from the ice catastrophe. It seems that the debris removal process will continue for a long time as the need for it just keeps reupping every time the wind blows.
It’s about this time of year that I usually get my first case of poison ivy due to going full steam ahead on yard work at the mere mention of a warm-ish day. But, of course, this year is different. There’re no pulling vines yet, there’s still only hauling branches and sighing in resignation while looking out over the damaged yard.
But fate wasn’t going to let me get through the month of March without some form of skin related suffering as I did get my first sunburn of the year. The Water Valley Main Street Association’s 3rd Annual Casey Jones Blues Fest was this past Saturday and my volunteer job was “golf cart driver.” In a matter of one day, I went from having never even cranked a golf cart to essentially being NASCAR certified. Somehow, I lived well over four decades having missed the memo that driving a golf cart is top tier fun and convenience. Well, I know now and my Life360 route on my phone for Saturday is about 3,000 loops around Railroad Ave and Main Street. All, this to say, I got sunburned on the entire left side of my body as it was not under the canopy of the golf cart.
Although I am suffering to the left, it is worth it because the festival was really fun! The weather was beautiful and I enjoyed seeing everyone. The two things that I enjoyed the most were an order of fried boudin eggrolls and watching my husband, Wil Cook, win first place overall in the Casey Jones 5k run. If you live in Water Valley and are out and about in the morning time, you’ve likely seen Wil running around town at some point. The Casey Jones 5k route was essentially a shorter version of his regular daily running route so he was accidentally very prepared to run the race.
I appreciate the opportunity to watch someone else excel in athleticism while I then go eat fried boudin eggrolls and that wouldn’t be possible without all the hard work of the Water Valley Main Street Association and volunteers, the support from town sponsors and the festival vendors and attendees. It was a great day to be in Water Valley!
