“…we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”  

~  Carson McCullers 

Daffodils smile along quiet Saluda lanes, with dancing yellow forsythia spikes promising spring. Winter is not usually done with us yet, but hopes rise as the days get longer and birds make nests, naughty blue jays adding in their two cents to the bird conversations around town. I’ve seen my resident bluebirds setting up housekeeping already, and a field of orange-breasted robins intent on catching the early worm.

In my last column, I threatened to get an electric chainsaw for cleaning up ice storm damage: huge pine limbs had snapped and destroyed the garden bench, azaleas, rhododendrons and hydrangeas. It was time to get even. Truthfully, I had hoped to find someone willing to do a small job and tackle the mess, so I wouldn’t have to get a chainsaw. The ‘help’ never showed on the appointed day, so when the going gets tough, the tough get going. To Home Depot, to the chainsaw display — if you want something done, do it yourself.

Naturally, I had to stand in front of the chainsaws and try to make my mind up. This one; no, this one or this one. While stuffing a box in the big orange cart, I was advised by a young man who was also perusing the chainsaw aisle that I’d need bar oil, and to keep WD-40 on the blade if I was cutting pine. He nicely asked if I had ever used a chainsaw before: I could tell he was worried. Bless his heart. I reassured him I knew a little about woodcutting although it’d been a long time, and I would be careful — hopefully not cutting any parts off. Spares are hard to get!

Saluda Welcome Table is every Tuesday, dinner will be served from 5:30 -7 p.m. in the fellowship hall of Saluda United Methodist Church. All welcomed; donations appreciated.

Small Town Main Street meeting March 19, 9 a.m. at Saluda Library; public welcome.

Saluda Community Land Trust meets at 5 p.m. at Saluda Presbyterian Church on March 20. Annual meeting is April 3 at the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, April 3, 6:30 p.m.

Saluda Center events: Community Potluck and Bingo March 25 at 6 p.m.  Polk County Red Cross blood drive, March 27, 1-7:00 p.m.

Blue Ridge Contra dances at The Party Place (right off I-26/Ozone Drive) March 17.  For info: blueridgecontra@icloud.com