Vacation Recap

Blogger is singularly uncooperative when it comes to uploading pictures into my blog. So sorry for the multiple posts of photos from vacation but I am sure you'll deal :)

We left for Arkansas on Saturday afternoon. The bird was on his way to Huntsville to stay with our good friends down there and his bird friend Kethry. The drive was easy, and we didn't get lost.

At Mt. Ida we checked in to our cabin, and then went for a walk. Nature girl I am not. We'll get to that later. After Mark cooked up the burgers we had a soak in the hot tub and went to bed.

Sunday we had breakfast and then went to Arrowhead Crystal Mine. We spent from about 11 until about 3 digging. We decided to actually buy a pocket and have a pile to dig through rather than just wandering around on our own this time. We had a great time, and found lots and lots of crystals.

Monday I went for a trail ride while Mark stayed at the cabin, as he's not much for horses. Note that he would not even come down and take a picture of me on the horse. Yeah. He just doesn't do horses.

In fact, note how many pictures of me there are. Because he didn't take any. Well, he took one, but it was so bad I cut it down so you can only see the fish. Note also that I bought a new camera for this trip.

After my trail ride we went for a canoe trip. 6 miles down the river. I fished, and I caught a fish (and let it go after our photo op).

We left the cabins on Tuesday morning and drove to visit my Aunt Sarah and Uncle James. Sarah is my mom's sister, closest to her in age. We had a great visit. We took a trip out to the farm and Sarah is nature girl. Mom never let me go into the buildings, or look at things because she was afraid of snakes and ticks and spiders. Now, I don't do spiders or ticks or things that crawl in my hair or my face. I used half a can of Off before going into the woods. Sarah just charged in. I got to see things I didn't know existed out there, and look forward to going back on a salvage mission when there has been a good frost - maybe January.

We visited the cemetery and my grandparents' graves. We also visited the Arnold cemetery which I had never been to and saw my great-grandparents' graves. I photographed all the stones in both cemeteries for the online cemetery project.

It was sad to head home on Wednesday but we did. And we drove all the way back to Mt. Ida just to visit The Crystal Seen. We stopped there on our way out of town for acid to clean the crystals and enjoyed our visit so much that we decided to go back to buy our thank you gifts for Mark's dad and for our friends in Huntsville who kept the bird.

While it is good to be home, it is lonely without Bogey and I'll be glad to get to Huntsville tonight to see the little boy.

The farm part 2

This rose bush has been growing wild for who knows how long around where some old cabins were.

A ladder still stands against a tree. Wonder why?

Inside one of the cabins - looks like a stove or a cupboard??

I have been told the green door was a kerosene stove.

The farm

This was once the front porch step - looking at it from the back as if I was in the house.









The inside of the smokehouse

The inside of the chicken house - these were the boxes where the chickens laid the eggs. Behind you can see the roost area where the chickens would roost and their droppings would fall through to a concrete pad below that could be hosed off. I remember gathering eggs - I always slammed the henhouse door first to scare the chickens out of the boxes so I didn't get pecked. Sometimes there was a snake in one of the boxes trying to eat eggs. Pop-pop put golf balls in the boxes and often the snakes would eat those.

The Cemetery Visits

My mother's mother's parents

My maternal grandfather


My maternal grandmother

Vacation Part 2

The Crystal Dig - we were digging next to the people where you see the orange bucket all by itself.
And of course our crystals after a first wash.

And of course our crystals after a first wash.

Vacation Part 1

The sock arrives at the cabin.

Grill Master Mark

I caught a fish!!!

Dear Person Who Broke Into My Car

You can keep the 75 cents in pennies you found in my console. You can even keep the bag. But for all that is good and holy in this world

PLEASE RETURN MY SOCK AND MY YARN AND MY NEEDLES

See, that one sock you took was almost 6 months of work. And it fit my husband. And I was going to start the second one this week. Plus the needles, well, they go with the set of Knitpicks DPNs that I bought. And the yarn, well, it's kind of irreplaceable seeing as how it was hand painted and I don't remember where I got it.

I know you don't understand these complicated terms, as you are a thief not a knitter. Your grandma could probably explain them, but you'd have to tell her where you got the knitting in the first place and I don't think she'd be proud of you.

I am very sad for you. Because not only do you have the karma on your soul that you stole, you have the karma on your soul that you stole something of absolutely no value for absolutely no reason. That's even worse. If you were starving, I'd have given you something to eat.

Now I'm just sad. And I'm going to have to replace my needles and start a new pair of socks. Perhaps that isn't such a bad thing after all.......

Wet Bird

Bogey showers with me almost every morning. He loves his showers.

Sometimes he has so much fun he does a little dance:

Then he gets the wings going - sometimes this causes him to fall off the perch and get VERY wet.

And when it is all over he gets the hairdryer on very low heat, which is his favorite time of day.

DAR State Convention

This weekend I was a page at the 103rd State Conference of the Tennessee Society Daughters of the American Revolution. It was my first year as a page, and it was quite an experience. I was personal page to Ms.Patricia King Rhoton ( Mrs. Alex), Honorary State Regent of Tennessee, Past Vice President General of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR School Committee Board of Trustees for Kate Duncan Smith School and National Society Advisor to the DAR Schools Committee. It was a pleasure to serve Ms. Rhoton and I hope to have the opportunity to do so again.
On Friday things were generally more relaxed and I worked at the TSDAR sales table selling license place frames, Kroger cards and our State Regent's project pins to raise money for the NSDAR. Friday night things got interesting, not only with very strong storms and tornadoes rolling through our area, but also with our formal opening ceremonies. To see all the pages in their white, with gloves, all the ladies in their finery. To watch our colors be paraded down the center aisle, to say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the National Anthem. The feeling of patriotism in the room. It was an experience I will never forget and hope to repeat.

On Saturday I attended the business meetings and heard the reports of our national and state officers present. And on Saturday afternoon I attended my first Juniors meeting. As the Junior Chair for the Zachariah Davies Chapter it was an educational experience. And on Sunday I attended the memorial service for the Tennessee Daughters who passed away in the last year. It was another moving and touching experience. When I die, I hope somebody will stand up for me and say I was a good DAR.

Many congratulations to Cindy James, our Tennessee State Outstanding Junior Member!