Family shots

 Most of these photos can go unremarked!

Reclamation

One of the personal missions I feel regarding my small farm is to rehabilitate to the extent possible the part of the land that was never restored after it was strip mined in the early '60s.    The most serious spot is a berm that has enabled the beavers to periodically flood several acres, and use as a base below it to ruin several more acres of trees by setting up a series of small wallows and dams.     After consulting with the USDA Forest Service, I embarked on a restoration effort that will eventually put the stream-bed that runs through the area in wet weather back to its approximate original path.   My longtime friend Glenn accompanied me on a recent trip, and here is shown learning the backhoe.  We eventually punched a gap in the berm which I hope to expand to make the land productive again.   Beavers be dammed, or un-dammed..

Thanksgiving time is here.

Thanksgiving must be here because my Christmas Cactus is blooming.

When I see this I think of my Big Mama.   She had an incredibly green thumb and one of the plants she grew so successfully was Christmas Cactus. Hers were dark green, plush with long shiny branches and beautiful and very colorful flowers. She would hang the pots on her porch or perch them on posts with the long stems dangling down several feet.  My cactus is a pale imitation of hers.  And we would visit her around the time of her Christmas Cactus blooming.


My other grandmother loved petunias which she very successfully grew in the summertime, and when I see them, I think of her, too.

I miss them both.

Some People are Meant to Be Together

Some people are just meant to be together.   We are two of them.   We met through a twisted, rocky and sometimes miserable route, but one that prepared us for a life together. Some people are being prepared even as children for each other. Never have I ever regretted our decision and commitment to be together for the rest of our lives.

She is so cute, I could just squeeze her.

the answer is...  briefs....

A rare glimpse of the girl getting mirror time.

After 30 years, I am still the only one with cellulite.

In about 23 Years I will be ready to sit in the front and drive.

Because I am getting my 2-year-old's learner's permit now.

It was 30 years ago today that she became my Spousal Unit, and said "I do".   It has been the grandest 30 years.  Only the Lord could have prepared two people so different, and yet with so many things in common for our journey together.  I really hope that by all this sweet talk, she puts up with me for another 30.   I surely love this woman.

Ishmaelnot's Soccer

 Our nephew, Ishmaelnot is a pretty good player.   He knows which side of the ball to kick.  It doesn't usually take much time for his opponents to figure this out and key on him.

Often times, the other team will gang up on him and chase him down.

  .

 When they do contend for the ball, he can be the object of a little bit of foul play.

  .

 

Sometimes it is hard for the referee not to see.   But the ref manages somehow.

 

Ishmaelnot will sometimes take matters into his own hands when he has to.

 

 

Trip to Beaufort

Uncle James and I headed out on Sunday morning to Beaufort.  We had not left the state when it started to drizzle, and the sky became dark.     After weeks of dry weather, a storm drove up the Florida coast, with winds and rain and dark sky all the way up the Atlantic, just in time for us.   When we arrived, we also realized that it was a full moon and the barometer was dropping like Auburn's 2011 National Championship hopes.  So, as a result, the fishing was not going to be good.  The weather man kept up a tease, though, each day telling us that the weather would clear in a day & a half.   It didn't.

This picture shows Uncle James driving the boat through the tidewater and Uncle Billy throwing a shrimping net.   The shrimping and fishing were awful,  The crabbing was good!   

It was interesting as a newly retired guy visiting with three members of the family from the previous generation.  There were often two, even three conversations going on at the same time with no listeners.  The two most  often spoken words were "Huh?" and "What?".      I think I contributed about half of those, so this was a peek into my hearing-aid-wearing future.

 We gathered about 60 blue crabs during the week.

Uncle Billy knows how to prepare crab.

 Once the cooking starts, all you need to do is tell fishing stories.

 After the blue crab is red, he is cooked.

 Uncle James had his hat and gear in his van ready to go when I picked him up.   Unfortunately, because we went in my van, he forgot to get his hat out and take it.   He begged me to lend him this Auburn hat, because he has always wanted to wear one, and just never had the opportunity despite his matriculation with a masters degree from that institution.  And then, he begged me to take his photo.*

 We caught a few shrimp as we went, as bait for fishing.   Most were sacrifices to the fickle fishing gods, and the crabs that snatched them.

My only other experience was a couple years ago recounted HERE 

 

 I was beginning to think that I was the fishing jinx because other than a few crabs on our lines, stealing our bait, and a few fish that were too small to keep, only Uncle Billy had caught one.   That is, until I didn't go with them.   That's when James caught his fish.

It was a spotted tail redfish.  Uncle James was so proud of catching that fish that he begged me to take his photograph.*



*[I may have the details of these notes backwards]   ;-)