For instance: if you Google the phrase “mickey g’s,” the 13th option is a post I did February 5, 2010, entitled “serendipity at mickey g’s.” This post has been accessed hundreds of times since then by folks looking for information about the restaurant. There have been two comments left about the food and restaurant, the last one a negative review received this morning:

Not happy. // Nov 9, 2010 at 6:17 am (Edit)
The pricing was a high average. Our waitress was fantastic, punctual, polite, and very professional. There is where the nice things to say end. Our 16″ pizza took up the table and even though there was an elevated pizza rack you were eating under a shelf of pizza. Our pizza came out dripping “water?”, we got the supreme with portabella and as you are eating only one thing stood out as an individual, the crust. With sausage, pepperoni, 2 mushrooms, green pepper and onion you expect some flavor, you may as well get bread sticks. Was not worth the gas to drive from my home to the “Bistro”, much less the 32$ we dropped on it. I have read a couple scathing articles and thought maybe was do to busy times or people not liking being put on patio etc. Now I see there is valid reason to not eat there, The interior is cramped, and at a slow time the pizza was fast, but speed does not mask poor quality ingredients and skimpy toppings. You could not even tell it had sauce aside from red tinged bread. I am annoyed by the pizza’s quality and utter lack of flavor. I suggest if you want a place to dine in floyd to try somewhere else as there are several far better choices.

I invite those of you who have an experience with mickey g’s bistro and pizzeria, good or bad, especially those who have eaten there on my recommendation, to click on the link above and share it with the rest of us. Your comment will then be part of the record.

A Little Housekeeping

Because of the number of hits I get looking for information, I’ve added a link to the Wythe County Government website to the blog roll in my continuing effort to make Wythe Notes your one stop shopping site for all things Wythe County.

I don’t know if the seemingly inordinate number of morning spider webs I’ve been seeing lately means anything, like a hard winter, early frost, or anything like that, but they make some cool photos. Here are a couple for your perusal.

The Grits Mess

Anne tends to eat healthier than I do, particularly when it comes to breakfast. She favors whole grain cereal and fruit or juice, while I prefer a more cholesteral laden country breakfast. On those rare occasions when she does have something sturdier in the morning, it’s usually the grits mess, a creation she credits to her Uncle Mac. You start with a bowl of grits and add whatever you wish to it. Eggs, cheese, sausage, bacon, ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms, whatever blows your hair back.

When I went back to college after the army, I joined the Vets Club, a fraternity like social/service organization of military veterans who, like me, had returned to school to complete their education. We did good work, volunteering in a number of areas to benefit the school and local community. We also partied……hard. Some of our parties were legendary, like the time Anne and several other wives mooned the governor, senator, and state attorney general of North Carolina. Parties aside though, we were a fairly responsible group. We used designated drivers long before it was the fashion. And we generally ended our parties with a grits mess, one that included all of the ingredients listed above and then some. If you’ve never tried a grits mess, I highly recommend one.

One of the least pleasant aspects of country life is the variety and number of critters with whom we often share our humble little cottage. For the first couple of Decembers  when I came down for the weekend, I found the place overrun with mice and ladybugs. The mice I expected, but the hundreds of ladybugs, both living and dead were a surprise.

Other parts of the year bring all manner of flying insects, ants, naturally, fleas, ticks, and one of my very favorites: wood roaches. The sight of one in the house causes Anne to display that most Southern of conditions known as the “hissy fit”, and the pile of mulch next to the house is full of them. {Note to self: Make sure they dump the next pile further from the house. Better yet, hire someone to distribute the stuff as soon as it is delivered.}

Our current plague seems to be spiders. I’m not talking about black widows or brown recluses, the ones that can turn your switch off permanently if you’re not careful. I’m talking about your average, run of the mill webslinger, the kind that, overnight, can spin a web the size of a pickup truck in the bathroom. Now, intellectually I know that spiders are very beneficial to the control of other insects, and that we shouldn’t kill them indiscriminately. And I don’t as long as they stay outside. I’ve watched the spider in the picture above work on that web for two days now. The architecture of a well built spiderweb is one of nature’s engineering miracles, and this one looks particularly well done.

But, should the little dude who built that beauty decide to move inside, it’s squash-city for him. I’ve been bitten by spiders twice in the last four years. Both times at night while I was asleep, and both hurt like the dickens when I awoke. They also took several months to heal and left permanent scars. So my live and let live policy with the natural world doesn’t apply to spiders in the house. I take no chances, and I take no prisoners.

Here are a few comforting thoughts. No matter where in the world you are, you’re usually no more than six feet from a spider.  And those daddy long-legs we used to let crawl on us as kids….those daddy long-legs have a very dangerous venom, one of the most dangerous venoms to humans. Luckily, their mandibles (jaws) aren’t strong enough to break our skin. Now, isn’t that special?

Our largest sunflower, which we have dubbed Audrey II after the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors, seems to be taking forever to bloom. We’ve been waiting and waiting………

Ok. Good winter or bad winter? I haven’t a clue. And despite everything the Ol’ Wives and the various almanacs have to say, I don’t think this guy does either. Nice coat though.

This morning after sawing a 2 x 12 for a raised bed of lettuce, I flipped over one of the pieces and this guy jumped out of the hole at me. I didn’t make the hole; I think he did. After a few minutes of trying to shake him out, he finally left of his own volition. Whereby, I squashed him.