NATCHEZ — Dale Anderson has only lived in Natchez for seven months, and that entire time he and his wife Jackie have been working to finish remodeling the door on their house.

“Since we have moved in, I have removed eight coats of paint and one coat of stain,” he said. “I have also patched about 400 holes in the door.”

When The Dart landed on Washington Street in Natchez, the Andersons had just finished the work on the door, and were still getting used to life in Natchez.

“Coming to a smaller town has been a nice change,” he said. “There is something to do here every weekend.”

The Andersons moved to Natchez from Racine, Wis., in May, and have been adjusting to life in the South ever since.

“The two main reasons we moved here were the taxes and the weather,” he said. “Both of them are much better here. We wanted to get so far South that no one knows what a snow shovel is.”

Besides the weather and taxes, Jackie said the food in the area is also an improvement from her previous home.

“I never knew what a biscuit was until I moved here,” she said.

Anderson even shipped some kringles, a Danish pastry common in Wisconsin, to Natchez for his neighbors to try because of the large sweet tooth Southerners have.

“I can’t drink the sweet tea down here,” he said. “It has too much sugar in it.”

Anderson said he and his wife decided to move here after he retired from his work at SC Johnson Company.

“There was a group trying to recruit retirees to Mississippi,” he said. “I figured we would give it a try.”

The Andersons bought their house two years ago, and knew they had some major renovations they needed to make, starting with the door.

“I noticed the door had some nice detail that was hard to see,” he said. “I wanted people to be able to see it.”

Anderson removed all the paint to give the door its original wood finish, and also replaced the glass in the door with specially-ordered glass-work from California.

“I just told them what I wanted and they sent it,” he said. “There are two layers of glass with a third layer sandwiched in the middle.”

Anderson said he and his wife have a lot of work left to do, but it did feel good to finish the door.

With more than half a year under their belts as Southerners, Anderson said there is one thing in the area that has he and his wife were not expecting.

“I’ve never seen so many bugs in my life, which is weird because I worked for the company that made Raid,” he said. “There are even bugs I have never even seen before.”