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Why Do Southerners Barbeque Out Front?

nota bene said:
Where you live must be gorgeous. I'm with you on spending your time salmon fishing rather than mowing. Thank heavens I don't suffer 20 hours of sun, but I do live in a flood plain, and 5 minutes of rain is all it takes to produce "lush vegetation." Every late winter/early spring is different, but sometimes keeping up with the mowing is hopeless. It's just too wet. On the bright side, I have a great blue heron and a young white crane who visit then. I try to regard my backyard at times like these as a bird sanctuary. :mrgreen:
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I've been through every State west of the Mississippi River, and a few east of it, and the place in the lower-48 that comes the closest to Alaska is the 1.3 million acre Glacier National Park in Montana. Northwestern Wyoming comes in a close second place. Even they don't do it justice. I'm literally surrounded 360° with mountains above 10,000 feet in a white birch and black spruce forest. Wildlife is everywhere, which can be both a blessing and an annoyance. You learn not to attract too much attention, like leaving the barbecue outside. When you live remotely you need to take things into consideration, like critters getting into your trash. I keep my household trash in my garage with my barbecue, until I take it to the landfill every 2 or 3 months.

We just had two fires that got pretty close this Summer, one was only 15 miles away. So I'm not using my burn barrel these days. I'll wait until it either snows or rains before using it.

I specifically chose my property to be away from water sources and with some elevation. I'm just over 5 miles from the coast at 396 feet elevation, and the closest creek is about a mile away. Earthquakes and tsunamis were my biggest concern after fire. Thankfully I've already been through a 7.9 and a 7.2 quake without any structural damage.
 
Glitch said:
I've been through every State west of the Mississippi River, and a few east of it, and the place in the lower-48 that comes the closest to Alaska is the 1.3 million acre Glacier National Park in Montana. Northwestern Wyoming comes in a close second place. Even they don't do it justice. I'm literally surrounded 360° with mountains above 10,000 feet in a white birch and black spruce forest. Wildlife is everywhere, which can be both a blessing and an annoyance. You learn not to attract too much attention, like leaving the barbecue outside. When you live remotely you need to take things into consideration, like critters getting into your trash. I keep my household trash in my garage with my barbecue, until I take it to the landfill every 2 or 3 months.

We just had two fires that got pretty close this Summer, one was only 15 miles away. So I'm not using my burn barrel these days. I'll wait until it either snows or rains before using it.

I specifically chose my property to be away from water sources and with some elevation. I'm just over 5 miles from the coast at 396 feet elevation, and the closest creek is about a mile away. Earthquakes and tsunamis were my biggest concern after fire. Thankfully I've already been through a 7.9 and a 7.2 quake without any structural damage.
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Wow, you've been very lucky. And blessed so live in such beauty--the birch and black spruce must be so pretty--and peace. Sadly, "civilization" has now encroached, displacing a lot of critters. The glow from town grows ever closer, and one of those dreadful, ubiquitous Dollar General stores with its hideous yellow sign has sprung up fairly close.

They take paradise and put up a parking lot. :twisted::twisted::twisted:
 
When its a neighborhood thing, thats where the people all gather.
 
nota bene said:
Wow, you've been very lucky. And blessed so live in such beauty--the birch and black spruce must be so pretty--and peace. Sadly, "civilization" has now encroached, displacing a lot of critters. The glow from town grows ever closer, and one of those dreadful, ubiquitous Dollar General stores with its hideous yellow sign has sprung up fairly close.

They take paradise and put up a parking lot. :twisted::twisted::twisted:
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It depends on the season. Spring is the ugliest season. Everything is the color of mud. Summer everything is lush and green, but still not as pretty as either Winter or Autumn. Autumn is indisputably the prettiest of the seasons. The fireweed is in full bloom, the snowline creeps down to 5,000 feet, and all the birch, cottonwood, and alder change colors from green to various colors of yellow, orange, and red. Only the spruce stays green.

Autumn in Alaska.jpg

Winters are often overlooked, probably because half the State leaves during the Winter months. Personally, I love Alaskan Winters. You get use to the long Winter nights just as you get use to the long Summer days. However, it does give Winter Solstice a more important meaning this far north. We go from losing 5+ minutes of daylight every day for the last six months to gaining 5+ minutes of daylight every day for the next six months. That by itself is a huge morale boost and worthy of celebration.

Alaska Northern Lights.jpg

You might enjoy this. It is a 20 minute video commemorating my 25 years in Alaska that I put together in 2016.

 
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Lord Tammerlain said:
Only one door out?

Houses here have to have two. Only condo's and townhouses can get away with one door
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I noticed that too. Couldn't get a CO with one door. And condo's usually don't allow bbq. around here.
 
JMR said:
I noticed that too. Couldn't get a CO with one door. And condo's usually don't allow bbq. around here.
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Technically I have three outside doors, counting the garage door. One is my front door, the other is a side door to the attached garage. The only "door" that leads to my backyard is a doggie-door that I cut into the back of my garage wall so my dogs could come and go as they pleased. When you don't live in a city or town then you don't have to adhere to their building codes or require inspections. There are some State requirements, however, particularly in regard to wells and septic systems. Everything else is pretty much left up to the owner to do as they please.
 
Glitch said:
It depends on the season. Spring is the ugliest season. Everything is the color of mud. Summer everything is lush and green, but still not as pretty as either Winter or Autumn. Autumn is indisputably the prettiest of the seasons. The fireweed is in full bloom, the snowline creeps down to 5,000 feet, and all the birch, cottonwood, and alder change colors from green to various colors of yellow, orange, and red. Only the spruce stays green.

View attachment 67268913

Winters are often overlooked, probably because half the State leaves during the Winter months. Personally, I love Alaskan Winters. You get use to the long Winter nights just as you get use to the long Summer days. However, it does give Winter Solstice a more important meaning this far north. We go from losing 5+ minutes of daylight every day for the last six months to gaining 5+ minutes of daylight every day for the next six months. That by itself is a huge morale boost and worthy of celebration.

View attachment 67268914

You might enjoy this. It is a 20 minute video commemorating my 25 years in Alaska that I put together in 2016.

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Thank you for taking the time to create this post. The video is beautiful and the soundtrack stirring. I could almost smell the winter air, and having lived in Minnesota and Michigan when I was little, I have a real thing about this (now I live in a state whose whether can best be described as hotter-than-refried-hell summer/not summer).

This is probably a dumb question, but how do the long days and long nights affect your sleep patterns? Or do they?
 
Lived a large part of my life in Georgia and Alabama. Never saw this as a thing at all. Most people BBQ in the back yard.

Or was this all just a half-handed attempt to cast southerners in a bad light?
 
nota bene said:
I've a friend who lives way out in the county in a now very old and funky singlewide over which she's put a roof and around which she's built a cool and very rustic porch. It's so beautiful out there, only dark everywhere at night you look and stars and one of her horses snorting from time to time. Beautiful plants and flowers everywhere.

The surprise is the expensive, vast attachment to the back of the single-wide. Spectacular glass and lighting for her objets d' art from all over the world, much from Egypt. When she's home, she's very politically active, and when nothing's going on, she hops on a plane with only a backpack.

She also has a complete chemistry lab. Her degrees are in biochem, and she goes on various kicks. Rosicrucian. Very metaphysical.

She just doesn't give a damn what others think, especially those who judge others by their doublewides. ;)
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She sounds like a wonderful person to have coffee with. :lol: Oh, the stories she could tell.
 
Glitch said:
My friends house is rather unique. It began as a double-wide trailer and he replaced it one room at a time over the years with a more permanent structure. So it is really more of a Hodge-podge of connected rooms than a coherent home. Neither of us live in town, so there are no building codes. We can pretty much build whatever we please.
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My father did that when we were kids. We started out in a single-wide and he built on the front, and then built on the back, and then ripped out the trailer part and built rooms down the center.

That was the first home my parents owned. They were both older and we were thrilled that we finally had our own home, and better yet - no mortgage payment!
 
nota bene said:
Thank you for taking the time to create this post. The video is beautiful and the soundtrack stirring. I could almost smell the winter air, and having lived in Minnesota and Michigan when I was little, I have a real thing about this (now I live in a state whose whether can best be described as hotter-than-refried-hell summer/not summer).

This is probably a dumb question, but how do the long days and long nights affect your sleep patterns? Or do they?
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It was a labor of love. The video of the wolves were particularly difficult to get because they tend to be very allusive and avoid human contact. Moose and bear are easy to video because they don't care about humans, as long as they stay out of their way. Since I live so close to the coast my Winters are considerably milder than either Minnesota or Michigan. It was the Minnesota Summers where I had problems. I couldn't tolerate the 90% humidity with 90°F well into the evening. I lived in Palmdale, CA, in the Mojave, so heat is no stranger. However, that heat was considerably drier and that made it much more tolerable. I can deal with 120°F and 10% humidity, but not 90°F and 90% humidity. Thankfully it never really gets that hot here in Alaska. Anchorage broke a record high of 90°F on July 5th, for one day, that was set in 1964. Normally 80°F+ days are uncommon, and when they occur they do so in June or early July. Those are the days we get thunderstorms. We can go years without having a thunderstorm. Unfortunately, it is the lightning from those thunderstorms that starts 90% of the fires in Alaska.

In order to avoid Seasonal Affective Disorder it is important to maintain a regular sleep cycle. So it doesn't matter if the sun won't set for another 4 hours, or has already set 4 hours ago, you go to sleep at your regularly scheduled time. If you have trouble sleeping with the sun still out, you can place aluminum foil over your bedroom windows. During the Winter it is also a good idea to add a few extra lights, and above all, get outside on a regular basis. I hunt, but hiking or other Winter activities work as well. Don't stay locked up in your home all Winter. If you follow those steps you can avoid SAD.
 
VySky said:
On the West coast, we grilled in the back yard. In the south, you see grills on the front porch or in the front yard. I'm sure the washer and dryers out front will come up, but what's with the grilling out front thing?
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I've never seen it and I've lived all across the South for over 35 years.
 
VySky said:
On the West coast, we grilled in the back yard. In the south, you see grills on the front porch or in the front yard. I'm sure the washer and dryers out front will come up, but what's with the grilling out front thing?
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When I lived in TX we did all our outdoor cooking in the backyard by the pool. I didn't notice anyone else cooking in their front yard. Methinks you're propegating a myth, myth-ter :)
 
Superfly said:
My father did that when we were kids. We started out in a single-wide and he built on the front, and then built on the back, and then ripped out the trailer part and built rooms down the center.

That was the first home my parents owned. They were both older and we were thrilled that we finally had our own home, and better yet - no mortgage payment!
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That is why my friend bought the property as well. Including the trailer, well, and septic the acre of land cost him $46K. He had it paid off in 7 years. He kept a piece of the trailer and framed it to remind him where his home originated. That is the only piece of the trailer that remains. He replaced everything else.
 
Keridan said:
Only times I see this down south is when they want the neighbors to show up and partake in the feast
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Those are block parties. I've seen far more since I live in the South than I ever saw when I lived in Denver.
 
jimbo said:
Those are block parties. I've seen far more since I live in the South than I ever saw when I lived in Denver.
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They do tend to become that! And it's nearly always a great time

I've even had a couple of mine blow up into great fun
 
Superfly said:
Lived a large part of my life in Georgia and Alabama. Never saw this as a thing at all. Most people BBQ in the back yard.

Or was this all just a half-handed attempt to cast southerners in a bad light?
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I would have thought the idea to BBQ in the front was to be more social with the neighbors, talking to them as they go by, offering some to friends. In turn expecting the same when the neighbors BBQ. Creating a good sense of community rather than people holed up in their own homes, and lives.

Part of the front porch idea of people sitting outside talking to people as they walk by.

Not a negative but a positive
 
Glitch said:
It depends on the season. Spring is the ugliest season. Everything is the color of mud. Summer everything is lush and green, but still not as pretty as either Winter or Autumn. Autumn is indisputably the prettiest of the seasons. The fireweed is in full bloom, the snowline creeps down to 5,000 feet, and all the birch, cottonwood, and alder change colors from green to various colors of yellow, orange, and red. Only the spruce stays green.

View attachment 67268913

Winters are often overlooked, probably because half the State leaves during the Winter months. Personally, I love Alaskan Winters. You get use to the long Winter nights just as you get use to the long Summer days. However, it does give Winter Solstice a more important meaning this far north. We go from losing 5+ minutes of daylight every day for the last six months to gaining 5+ minutes of daylight every day for the next six months. That by itself is a huge morale boost and worthy of celebration.

View attachment 67268914

You might enjoy this. It is a 20 minute video commemorating my 25 years in Alaska that I put together in 2016.

Click to expand...


Been to Glacier National Park twice; last time this past September in White Fish for a week at a dude ranch and then a week in West Glacier in a cabin. Visited all the big lakes, and took the Going to the Sun Road twice. I love that place. The roads in West Glacier were extremely rugged unpaved roads with thousands of potholes. We stayed in Polebridge. Alaska is on my bucket list.

BTW, did you shoot all the stills and video yourself?
 
Superfly said:
She sounds like a wonderful person to have coffee with. :lol: Oh, the stories she could tell.
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She is and she does, and you would love her politics.
 
jimbo said:
Those are block parties. I've seen far more since I live in the South than I ever saw when I lived in Denver.
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We call them festivals here in Alaska. Like the Moose Dropping Festival in Talkeetna (population 449).



They play bluegrass music, have a pseudo-moose parade, and lots of barbecue caribou, moose, beef, and salmon, with Moose's Drool beer to wash it down. :)

FYI, "Swamp Donkey" is an Alaskan colloquialism for moose. ;)
 
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Glitch said:
It was a labor of love. The video of the wolves were particularly difficult to get because they tend to be very allusive and avoid human contact. Moose and bear are easy to video because they don't care about humans, as long as they stay out of their way. Since I live so close to the coast my Winters are considerably milder than either Minnesota or Michigan. It was the Minnesota Summers where I had problems. I couldn't tolerate the 90% humidity with 90°F well into the evening. I lived in Palmdale, CA, in the Mojave, so heat is no stranger. However, that heat was considerably drier and that made it much more tolerable. I can deal with 120°F and 10% humidity, but not 90°F and 90% humidity. Thankfully it never really gets that hot here in Alaska. Anchorage broke a record high of 90°F on July 5th, for one day, that was set in 1964. Normally 80°F+ days are uncommon, and when they occur they do so in June or early July. Those are the days we get thunderstorms. We can go years without having a thunderstorm. Unfortunately, it is the lightning from those thunderstorms that starts 90% of the fires in Alaska.

In order to avoid Seasonal Affective Disorder it is important to maintain a regular sleep cycle. So it doesn't matter if the sun won't set for another 4 hours, or has already set 4 hours ago, you go to sleep at your regularly scheduled time. If you have trouble sleeping with the sun still out, you can place aluminum foil over your bedroom windows. During the Winter it is also a good idea to add a few extra lights, and above all, get outside on a regular basis. I hunt, but hiking or other Winter activities work as well. Don't stay locked up in your home all Winter. If you follow those steps you can avoid SAD.
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Humidity will suck the lifeforce out of you. If it weren't for gardening, I would stay locked up in my house for months at a time. I keep the thermos at 67 year-round and don't even turn on the heater for the first time until the temp drops below 50. Or more. Princess weather, and I am a princess: 70 during the day/45 at night. Perfect!

I didn't realize that Alaska is so dry and assume that melting snow compensates a lot for less rain? No thunderstorms for years? Wow!

I can count on one hand the times since moving south that there has been real snow. By "real" I mean actually stayed on the ground. A full day of snow is amazing; two days is a miracle. People just go nuts. I live in a college town, and the last time it s-worded (that's right; nobody dares say "snow" for fear of jinxing any hope of it), there were literally thousands and thousands of pitiable little snowpeople everywhere.

Question about the moose: One looked for awhile as if it were on a chain. Am I mistaken?
 
Glitch said:
That is why my friend bought the property as well. Including the trailer, well, and septic the acre of land cost him $46K. He had it paid off in 7 years. He kept a piece of the trailer and framed it to remind him where his home originated. That is the only piece of the trailer that remains. He replaced everything else.
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That is such a cool idea. The house we bought came with everything left inside. We have family pictures, etc, and we are going to take a small part of one wall and devote it to them. Like “this whole house started out with these guys.”
 
nota bene said:
She is and she does, and you would love her politics.
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Probably. One of my favorite people is my cousin’s cousin from her mother’s side. My cousin was like, “Will you please talk to this woman? She’s a Democrat and I don’t even know what to say to her.” :lol:
 
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