We have reached that time of year when enough leaves have fallen off the trees that I can see the lights from both the uphill and downhill neighbors when I take the dog on her evening walk. They are a quarter of a mile away, and we cant see them in the summer.
It seemed to happen all at once. On one day, I glimpse an occasional twinkle of light between the trees. On the next, the whole house is visible from the far end of our property. A sure sign that winter is almost here.
Last week was the peak of leaf season. Today, the roads are slippery with damp leaves, and the branches are emptier than they are full. Some species of trees are already bare, while a few leaves cling to others. Some lose their leaves at the top first, and then lower each day. That’s something you notice only if you are paying attention.
This is the time of year the “part-timers” winterize their homes and flee back to Florida, Mississippi, Arizona, or wherever they are from. It is also when the tourists stop showing up. Most of the restaurants that were already closed on Sunday and Monday cut their hours or stay closed on Tuesday as well. Seasonal businesses close up entirely, and even the most popular part-time rentals are empty for weeks at a time. It’s also the time of year when small businesses that were struggling shut down permanently, because if you can’t survive in the summer, you sure as hell won’t survive here in the winter.
Those places popular with the locals will stay open, of course, and they have the benefit of being less expensive. The food isn’t as fancy, but it’s just as filling and often comes with a slice of local gossip.
Winterizing
We have one part-timer in our neighborhood who came up before Memorial Day to open their house and then never spent another day here. We wonder if they will be back to winterize it. Many summer homes aren’t well insulated, so their pipes will freeze if the home isn’t wintereized. To winterize them, they have to drain all the water out and then hook up an air compressor and blast any remaining water out of the pipes. The trick is not to miss anything, like the hoses on your washer or that go to the ice maker.
For us, winterizing means putting plastic over the chicken coop windows and adding several inches of bedding to help them keep warm. It means carrying in firewood and taking the battery out of the garden tractor. It means putting mousetraps baited with peanut butter into the garage to catch the mice who are smart enough to get inside but dumb enough to get caught. (Two so far.)
It also means making sure we are ready in case get snowed in. My wife has stocked the freezer up so full she can’t fit any more meat in there until we eat some. But if we get snowed in for a month, we’ll be dining well, and we can feed our immediate neighbors.
I’m looking forward to things slowing down for a few months.
A Sheriff Deputy Visits
One day last week, I was working on a vehicle in my garage with my neighbor, and the door was open so the exhaust could get out. I hear a vehicle on the road, so I go out to see a red pickup truck climbing up the mountain.
“Are you expecting a visitor?” I ask Marty. No, he is not. Then the truck pulls into my driveway and heads towards us. Huh. I start walking down the driveway to meet it.
A fellow steps out in blue jeans, but he’s wearing a shirt with a name and badge embroidered on it. Given he has a red truck, I figure he’s a firefighter. Turns out he’s a deputy with the sheriff’s department.
“Everything OK up here? He asked.
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
“We’re getting a 911 call from this location.”
I check my phone, and it’s off. My wife’s not home, and we haven’t had a landline since the flood. Confused, I ask “What number is the call coming from?”. He whips out his radio and asks. Communications reads off the number. It sounds familiar. I call out to Marty, asking him what his number is. He comes out of the garage and tells us. Yep, his phone called 911. He hauls it out of his pocket and we can see it is in the middle of a call with the big red hang-up button on the bottom of the screen.
“Marty,” I say, “you’ve been dialing 911 for so long that they sent this fellow to make sure you were OK.” He looks befuddled, apologizes and hangs up. (In his defense, he’s in his 90s and this is his first iPhone. He was more comfortable with his old flip phone.) Two seconds after he hangs up, the radio crackles and the dispatcher says, “The party has hung up.” The deputy tells him everything is fine, and it was a pocket dial.
Location Services
“Marty lives up the road a quarter of a mile,” I said. “How did you know he was here?”
“We tracked his phone.” He explains they are required to do so when a 911 call comes in and no one talks to them. He said the conversation they overheard didn’t sound like anyone was in trouble, but they sent him out to be sure.
In a way, it’s reassuring to know that if I dial 911 and say nothing, a deputy will eventually show up. On the other hand, I am curious how they tracked the phone because it wasn’t on the cell tower. He made his call through our guest Wi-Fi network. So, do they have a log of the location of our router? Or does Marty have location services active on his phone? I doubt they could reach out to Starlink and find us that quickly.
Chances are, the only conversation they overheard was me asking for a 9/16th socket, the two of us discussing what gauge of wire we should use, and similar topics. But it’s a reminder that if you want to have a very secure conversation, don’t do it within 100 feet of a cell phone. You never know who might be listening.
The deputy grew up less than two miles away and used to ride his four-wheeler up and down these mountains. The three of us chatted until he got another call and headed out. Happily, all of my encounters with our local Sheriff Department members, including the sheriff himself, have been positive. They also seem to be 2A friendly.
Gotta love the mountains.
