Saturday morning and it has been a wonderful couple of days here in Morgantown WV. It was a long drive up here on Thursday, but we made it into town around 2:00 that afternoon. I dropped Rima off with all of our gear and then got back in the truck and headed for the airport in Pittsburgh. A friend from Colorado was flying in that afternoon and she had asked me many, many months ago if I would be able to pick her up and drive her down to the dance. I got to the airport about 10 mins before she called to be picked up, so it worked out just about perfect. A nice drive back down to the dance gave us a chance to catch up on what has been happening. Got the straight scoop on her trials after the rain storms and resulting floods in Colorado last year deposited about 3'-4' of silt in the front yard of her Bed and Breakfast. She is coping of course, but this week will be a good respite for her I am sure.

    The dancing has been amazing right from the first note on Friday night. Great Bear Trio has been the band I have been dancing to the most so far. But the Mean Lids are also wonderful of course. Great calling and dance partners have made for a near perfect vacation so far. Four hours of dancing to the GBT on Friday started us all out. A surprise to me was that I was actually up by 8:00 a.m. the next morning and even managed to dance all but two dances in that morning session.

    The food here, which is all included in the price, has been pretty good overall. Of course it is what you would expect from most hotel kitchens. But after 2-4 hours of intense dancing, pretty much anything that can be considered food is good. The food here has been many steps above that of course, and meal times are always a fun time to sit and talk to old friends or strike up conversations with some new ones.

    Come yesterday afternoon it was time to take a nap before the evening festivities started up again. Dinner first and then a concert before the dance. The GBT were doing the concert and Rima and I didn't actually make it to that one. We had attended the one on Thursday night which were the 'Eddy Sisters'. Two sisters who play a dozen or more instruments between them, I am so envious, but who have these amazing voices that outshine most people you would hear on stage anywhere in the world. In fact I wonder why they aren't recording in Nashville or someplace like that, and the only reason I can think of, is that they just don't have any interest. They just enjoy playing and singing with family and friends and that is enough. Of course, I really don't know any of their reasons, but since this is my blog, I give myself permission to guess until I know better.

    I'm going to take it easy for most of today I think. Rima was up early and grabbed the truck to drive out to some friends she has here in the area. They were talking about cutting up and splitting a bunch of firewood, and her face lit up at the thought of running a log splitter this morning. She's a funny girl.... but I like her anyway.  :)

    I was up until 2:00 last night drinking wine and listening to a bunch of people jamming outside the dance hall, so I'm less inclined to go out in the cold this morning. In fact I will probably take another nap this afternoon in order to be awake for more dancing this evening. But I need to find out who is playing and who is calling this afternoon and at what time. For some reason another 2-3 hours of hot, sweaty dancing sounds like fun. What a great way to spend the last week of a year.



   

    Merry Christmas to one and all.... and Happy Holidays to all of you that don't celebrate the day. Last night was a lovely evening spent down in Floyd attending the choral concert and service that my friend Rima was participating in. A packed church with warm happy people all around. I was imagining how there must be thousands of church services just like that one going on all over the world tonight. A few snacks afterwards, and a chance to talk to a few of the locals. More and more of them seem to be recognizing me as time is passing. Some of them may even know my name. But for now 'That Guy From Colorado' is good enough for me.

   A really lazy day of it here today. The sky was nearly clear and very sunny and by this afternoon it was nearly warm outside. Warm enough to go outside for a walk anyway. Rima and I spent a lot of the day inside just relaxing. She put together a nice meal of barbecued ribs for lunch, while I countered with oven roasted pork loin with a reduction sauce of pan drippings, white wine a little onion, garlic and capers. Actually turned out better than I thought it would and we had pan fried cabbage and some steamed broccoli and zucchini along with it. Good thing it had been nearly 8 hours between meals or we never would of made it.

    We have been spending some time loading up some music on Rima's new I-pod. It has been fun going through some of my music and picking out some stuff she wasn't familiar with. Of course nearly all of my 60's and 70's rock stuff is unknown to her..... she's such a youngster at times. But there are plenty of contra dance, folk and classical stuff for her to choose from. We started her out with about 2,700 songs and we will add more as time permits.

   We have also both been packing for our nearly week long contra dance trip over in Morgantown WV this next week. She has been busy putting together "outfits" while I have just been busy seeing if I have enough black shirts and short pants to wear. Also packed for me though, are the two books that I received for Christmas. One, an Eastern U.S. bird book so that I might now be able to figure out what it is that I'm looking at out there in the trees, as well as another book of interviews and articles about older people who lived in this area and how they survived. It reminds me a lot of several 'Fire Fox' books that I have been reading and I am anxious to start in on it.

    So..... I may be posting pretty sporadically for the next week or so. The computer and camera are coming with me however, so expect something to be posted once in a while. But it's hard to sit down and write anything when there is dancing to be done.

    Turned off clear last night... and then got cold of course. I spent yesterday afternoon, and it was nearly all afternoon, safely seated in a Cinema watching the latest Hobbit movie. Other than being 3 hours long, it was actually quite entertaining. The CGI stuff is pretty amazing, with wonderful scenes set in dark and evil forest's, to the dragon, Smaug, and his immense hoard of gold and treasure. Tons of violence of course. I remember reading all these books, several times actually, but even though I knew there were great battles going on, I never thought of all the implied violence that was written on those pages. Ah... the innocence of youth.

    Got out of the movie at about 5:30 and gave Rima a call. She was still working and was therefor still in town. Told her to meet me around 6:00 at the Mexican restaurant in Floyd and I'd take her out to dinner. I have now found several items on their menu there that meet my standard of what Mexican food should taste like. Mostly it means that there is a little 'heat' in it, and that they don't use Velveeta cheese. A product that I'm not even sure is actually food.

    Went over to her choir practice afterwards and read some magazine's while they practiced for their performance tonight. I don't like when she drives home in the dark these days. I know she doesn't see well in the dark and there are just too many deer out there wanting to commit suicide in front of your car. So I like to lead in my truck so she has some lights to follow, as well as sweeping the road ahead of her for any critters that might be wandering around. That came in handy last night as both a red fox and a nice white tail buck scampered across the road in front of me. There were also the 5-6 other deer that were in the driveway/pasture when we got back to the house. But they all ran off as soon as we pulled in.

    The deer were still in the area this morning. Several were laying out on the knoll just down from the house chewing their cud's. They stayed there pretty contentedly until Rima went out to feed the horses. I had my own wildlife crisis to take care of again this morning. Seems that after the rain finally stopped, and the weather turned colder, the mice started to head in where it was warm. Have managed to catch 3 in the basement so far. I think they like it down there by the furnace where it is warm.

   No real plan for the rest of the day. It is suppose to remain cold all day, but the sun is out so I think a little outdoor time is in order. I think maybe clean up some limbs and trim a few more. Maybe a walk later on would be nice. Merry Christmas to you all. Have a wonderful Holiday.

    Rainy, wet and grey this morning. Still very warm however, I doubt it got below 50 degrees all of yesterday, and it stayed way above freezing all night I am sure. It has been a very busy couple of days and I was just sitting here watching the rain in the forest while trying to remember all that has happened over the past three days.

    Friday was still somewhat sunny at times, but the rain was starting to set in as I recall. Rima only worked until two and then we both took off for Roanoke for the evening. She had to go to the DMV down there and register her newer old car. Other than time spent, there was no problem getting it done and getting some new plates. Like most government licensing entities they basically just want money. So if you have money it always seems to go okay.

   We finished up in time to head toward downtown where we planned on going to the theatre. But first, some dinner. We wandered around until we came across a Lebanese restaurant, The Cedars, or some such name, that sounded interesting. We had a great meal of, what I always think of as, Mediterranean food. So hummus and pita, swarma and lots of other grilled meats and vegetarian style dishes. Top it all off with some baklava and you have a meal that is hard to beat.

   On to the theatre after that where we had tickets to their version of The Sound of Music. This production was really quite wonderful. Every one of the actors did a fine job with their lines and songs, even little Gretel with her 'hurt' little finger. The women who played Maria had a beautiful voice and pulled off the little humorous nuances with aplomb. But for me, the best voice of the night came from the young lady who played Lisle. Altogether it was a fun little performance and Rima and I had a great time watching it.

    Saturday was spent cooking for a family get together for some of Rima's family. We did a bone in pork roast with a peach reduction sauce that we got the recipe  for from the Cooks Country/Americas Test Kitchen web site. It turned out better than expected and made us all hungry long before it was done and out of the oven. A couple of her kids and two of her grand kids showed up for dinner, as well as a couple of other guests. We had a good time eating and drinking around the table. Afterwards, when we were all to full to really move, there was time for talk and play card games or sit and read. It was a very nice evening.

   Yesterday was rainy and grey all day. Still very warm outside so there was no ice thankfully. Rima and I hung around cleaning up most of the morning. But in the afternoon we ran into town for a couple of hours. One of the choirs she sings in was having their Christmas concert and I went to listen to that. Only about an hour long, it was well attended and was a nice bit of holiday cheer on an otherwise dismal day.

     Rather than face leftovers, or having to scrounge around for a meal, we went on over to Micky G's
for some dinner afterwards. A nice steak for Rima and for me... a simple caroli. We had a nice dinner and then came home and put a movie on the tube. Knotting Hill was our choice. Actually one of my favorites believe it or not, but brand new for Rima. Fun to watch some of the funny scenes again and have a laugh or two. Afterwards it was time for some limoncello and some frozen cookie dough before finally hitting the rack.

    Hope to go over to Christiansburg later this afternoon. I have it in mind to go see the newest Hobbit movie that came out a couple days ago. Otherwise I think it is going to be an inside day I'm afraid. Right now though I need to clean up and get dressed the rest of the way. Hope to have some photo's in a day or two.

    Such a wonderful day here in Floyd today. Started out rather cool, but by the end of the day it had to be in the 50's or so. I was up just a little after 6:00 a.m. this morning. Hard to believe I know, but I had promised to help out my friend Rima with a day of baby sitting for one of her grand children. Little did I know that a 18 month old whirl wind of a kid would blow in and keep me running for more than 8 hours. I'm exhausted!

    On the other hand, it was also a lot of fun. We picked her up in Floyd and brought her back out to the house where she kept us busy for the next several hours wandering, or should I say running, all over the place. Interesting to be totally captivated by a little munchkin with an attention span of about 3 seconds. Pounding on the piano, then in to play ball, on to check out the mirror, then into the kitchen to check out the cereal boxes, then climb into the box to be pulled around and then climb out of the box to run, then in and pound on the piano a little bit more, then start all over again. By 10:30 I was ready for a nap... lucky for me so was she. Rima did much better than me of course, she at least manage to stay awake.

    About 30 minutes of nap time and Brynn and I were ready for round 2. First a little lunch, Rima and I had home made beans and cornbread while she had some kind of pureed chicken and vegetable thing. It was sort of yellow and mushy and looked like.... well you get the picture. But she seemed to like it and that is all that matters. Afterwards we bundled her up and all went outside for a walk. Took a couple of carrots out to feed the horses. She thought that was a lot of fun and enjoyed making little noises at them while waving hi. Then it was time to play in the driveway gravel and mud before falling down and rolling down the hill where her right shoe went right into a nice big pile of horse poo. Lucky for us she doesn't know any better, so we just picked her up, scrapped her shoe off and went on with our hike. I have to admit, for a little person of only 18 months, she walks really well. We put in just under a mile according to my pedometer, and except for picking her up when a car went by, she did all of it on her own two feet.

    Another couple of hours of play this afternoon almost produced a nap. But of course she held off until we had her buckled into the car seat before she finally faded out. Dropped her off at her moms place of employment and then went over to a local restaurant here in Floyd, Micky G's, for a fabulous dinner. I was craving pizza, so that is what I got, but Rima had one of their special 'special's', where she just tells the cook to make something up, in this case, with some fresh Mahi Mahi, and out comes a magnificent meal. Fresh grilled fish on a bed of angel hair pasta and fresh spinach with an olive oil, lemon and caper reduction sauce on the whole thing. I seldom wish I had ordered something different, and make no mistake, my pizza was mighty fine, but that meal was just top notch.

   It is suppose to be another warm day tomorrow and then even warmer over the weekend, with temperatures nearing 70 degrees. I hope to get out and about a little bit more tomorrow. To tell the truth though, I'm actually more tired today than I was yesterday after trimming trees and hauling limbs all afternoon. I guess it's 'good' for me once in awhile, but I am certainly glad I don't have to do that every day.

   Here are a few photo's from a couple of weeks ago when I was still in Florida. I went over to a local state park and took in what they call their 'Cane Squeezing Days Celebration'. It is an old homestead and they have lots of volunteers out there in period costumes showing how things were once done before modern conveniences.

Dudley Farm State Park just West of Gainsville Florida.

Dec 7, 2013

 

The back porch on the house. Plenty of people enjoying the shade while spinning yarn and sewing quilt pieces. 

One of several tobacco drying barns on the place. I liked the stone foundation and the covered shed area where wagons could park and unload out of the rain.

Inside the drying barn they had several racks of dried tobacco leaves hanging up.

Not sure what this little cart would of been used for, probably just about anything, I sure liked it though.

Dudley farm use to be on the main road between Gainsville and Tallahassee. It was also the biggest farm around the area. As such they had their own general store which also housed the post office. This is the original building as it would of looked like in the late 1800's. They picked it up and moved it to it's current location at some point in it's history.

Some of the farm implements you might of been able to buy at one time.

Another tobacco drying barn.

Since this was their annual 'Cane Squeezing Days Celebration' they had lots of volunteers around to show you how it had been done back in the old days. Here several kids get to try their hand at shelling dry corn off the cob and then grinding it into corn meal with a hand mill.

This guy was showing several kids, and me, how you could take small pieces of twine and twist it into bigger and bigger pieces of rope using a simple home made jig with an off set crank at one end.

The single block above the well.

This farm, like many of that day, had a separate building they used for cooking and dining. This kept the excess heat from the stove and fireplaces from heating up the whole house and also prevented every thing from burning if the kitchen caught on fire. Which they evidently did on a regular basis. This view shows part of the kitchen and part of the dining area.

Another view of the dining area showing that they also used this space to churn butter and to also iron clothes. Something that could be done while a meal was cooking.

The old outhouse. This one is actually a 3-seater. I have to say it would of been mighty cozy in there at times. Having grown up for the first 6 years of my life having to use one of these I can truly appreciate the design of the one my father had built. A roomy, comfortable 2-seater. It was never as nice as indoor plumbing like the neighbor kids had, but it wasn't all that bad either. Except maybe in the winter. Or at night.

The salt and smoke house.

A view of the inside of the smoke and salt house. Having no refrigeration at that time, methods of preservation had to be used when large quantities of meat were available at butchering time. Salting was done by burying large hunks of meat in pure salt in wooden troughs hollowed out from the trunk of a tree. This meat would sometimes stay buried in the salt for 4-6 months depending on the size of the portion. They could also hang the meat up and keep a smoky fire burning for several days to several weeks until most of the meat had dehydrated and taken on a rich smoky flavor. It was certainly an art form that nearly every person at that time knew how to do. It's kind of sad that the skill to do that today is mostly gone.

The outdoor boiling area where sap from crushed sugar cane was brought to boil it down into cane syrup, or even further down into molasses and sugar. This one wasn't being used this year. The one up closer to the road was the one they were using.

A view showing the large copper kettles that were used to boil most of the water out of the sugar cane juice. A large hot fire was maintained in the oven like area below the kettles and the syrup was tended constantly to keep it from boiling over and to remove any foam that developed.

At the newer sugar cane boiler closer to the road and main park office. This guy was using a large dipper to skim foam off the top of the boiling cane juice.

Another view of the oven and boiling kettle.

Lots of old fashioned farm machinery on the place. Some of it still in use. This is a horse drawn hay rake. I can still remember that my grandfather had, and used, one that was very similar to this one.

One of two mules they use for just about everything there at the park. They do demonstrations of plowing and planting and hauling stuff in an old fashioned wagon with the two mules. They were also using this one to turn the sugar cane crushing mill that day. It looks like they take pretty good care of their animals there at the park.

One last view of another old barn off in the distance.

 

    Spent yesterday afternoon working outside trimming trees and picking up dead limbs and putting them in piles. There was a little to much wind blowing for me to feel comfortable using the chainsaw. It would certainly ruin my whole day to have a tree fall on me, not to mention being uncomfortable. I had a lot of fun just cutting limbs off however, and I think the area I was working in looks a bit better and is now better able to resist a ground fire, if one was ever to start.

   My friend Rima got home around 5:00 and after eating a piece of quiche that I had made earlier in the day, see photo's below, we were off to a nearby town, Radford, where we stopped at the local University for their holiday program at the planetarium. Just a short program one of the professor's had created, it used part of an NPR program about the origins of many of the Christmas traditions we have. Such as where the Santa myth came from, why we decorate with evergreen trees and holly, and that whole mistletoe thing. It was quite entertaining. More interesting too me though was the short talk before that program that talked about the constellations that are in the sky at this time of year. As well as why earth has seasons and other fun facts. One interesting fact was that a projection of the earths equator actually passes right through the center of the constellation Orion's three star belt. Pretty cool science.

    It snowed last night. Only a slight dusting of white stuff, but when the sky cleared up it turned pretty darned cold. Today it is clear this morning, but still on the chilly side. I think it's time to bake some more zucchini cake before heading outdoors later on. Right now though it's time for another cup of hot tea. Oh; below are a couple of pictures of the quiche that I made yesterday. I took the photos with my telephone and actually emailed them to myself. A first for me. I made three quiche so that we would have one for dinner last nigh as well as a couple to keep for this weekend when we are expecting some company. It's always nice to have something handy if someone gets hungry.

 Home Made Quiche. - Dec 17, 2013

All three are the same, having a mixture of pork sausage, onion, garlic and broccoli as well as the normal egg, half an half and cheese mixture. They always come out of the oven all puffy and beautiful and then within minutes they settle down into their more dense looking persona.

The one we sampled tasted pretty good.

    The weather here has been steadily improving as the days have passed. Yesterday it was cool here, but mostly sunny. Spent most of the afternoon in Christiansburg doing some much needed last minute shopping. Went and found a 100' roll of 48" high fencing material. Seems that the horses and deer around here like to eat pretty much everything, including new blueberry plants that you set out two months ago. I am hoping that there is still enough of them left to grow this summer, but will just have to wait until warmer weather to see.

    Also did some grocery shopping and came home with some goodies for us. Rima had to spend most of her day in Roanoke for work, so she was going to get back home well after dark. I went ahead and roasted up some chicken and sweet potato fries along with some hot cornbread for dinner. It actually turned out pretty well I think.

    Not much else going on last night so we decided to go ahead and make up this years portion of limoncello. I had brought several sacks of lemons up from Florida just for this process. While I started zesting all 24 of the lemons we had, Rima was busy cutting and juicing the lemons themselves. She then used most of the juice to make lemonade, as well as freezing some of it for use later.  A bottle of vodka and some simple syrup, as well as the lemon zest is all you need. Mix it all in a large glass bottle or jar and leave in a cool dark spot for 2-3 months, and you should end up with a wonderful aperitif to sip after dinner or late at night.

    Today looks like it ought to be pretty nice. Still cool this morning, but I imagine it will be almost balmy by noon. Hope to spend most of the day out and about of course. I spent a little more than an hour last night trimming up trees here around the house. Lots of dead limbs that need to be cut off and lots of the trees need to be reshaped to grow better. It's always fun to wander around lopping off limbs here and there. It is rather cathartic in fact, and I advocate trimming trees as a way to burn off stress or simply clear your mind.

   I think today will be more of the same along with some brush clearing and such. But first... on to the comics and crossword.

    Drove down to Roanoke with Rima yesterday afternoon. She had gotten us tickets to the performance of the Nutcracker at their performance theatre there. Good seats from which to watch a fun little performance. Nearly all the main dancers and performers were high school age or younger. It added a new twist for me to watch which was very pleasurable. Overall the level of dancing was quite high, but there were enough minor glitches in it to keep it interesting. I particularly liked two scenes where 6 young boys dressed as reindeer pulled a sleigh with the Prince and Clara onto the stage and then proceeded to get run over by their own sled. No one was injured, but it was really cute just the same.

    We drove over to a local restraurant Rima knew of after the performance. Called 'Local Roots', it specialized in creating dishes featuring locally grown or produced ingredients. On Sunday they serve a limited menu and they serve it family style. So we ended up with two entrees between us, a really yummy pasta dish with an amazing winter squash based sauce on it, as well as what they were calling 'Not your mothers regular meatloaf'. That description was very true, as mom never made anything that tasted like this. I wouldn't of actually called it meatloaf, but it was made in a similar fashion. Using ground beef, buffalo and pork they spiced it up in some manner that had you wanting more, and then set it all on some cooked greens, perhaps chard or collard, I'm not really sure. Add to the meal these amazing 'home fried potatoes' and a dish of 'baked summer squash' and you had a meal fit for royalty. It was all very yummy!

    Today I'm off to Blacksburg and Christiansburg for some shopping. Will need to hit Home Depot, Lowes and possibly Tractor Supply as well as the grocery store before I'm all done. Lucky for me it looks like it will be a dry day and even slightly warmer, if you call barely above freezing warmer. Gotta go now.



   

    Sleepy, chilly Sunday morning here in Virginia. No snow on the ground, and indeed, the sky is mostly clear and somewhat sunny, but it is certainly cold enough outside. Went out and fed the horses earlier and made sure the ice on their water trough was broken up. But now it's nice to be sitting indoors drinking tea and eating zucchini bread while reading the comics and doing the crossword puzzle.

    Going back a few days though to Friday, it was also a chilly winter day. An easy morning indoors of course, but then it was time to get up and moving. Headed outdoors taking the good ol' chain saw with me. There had been a stack of logs and limbs outside the woodshed that had been cut the last time I was here in Floyd. The idea was to attack that stack and get it all cut up and stacked away. Did managed to get it all cut up, something that certainly isn't as easy to do when there is no one there to help, but it got done and I even managed to move and stack nearly all of it before Rima got back from work for the day.

   We finished stacking up most of what was left, but wanted to take advantage of the daylight to actually do something a little more fun. So we took off for a short hike that took us out through the upper pasture and down the main road to the north. About a mile up we turned right and headed down an old road that use to go down to the river and ford it, but which is now nothing more than an overgrown path. Getting down to the river we decided to walk back along the bank until we reached the path from it up to Rima's house. Didn't quite get that far because of the steep, really, really steep nature of the land along there, as well as the near impenetrable nature of all the rhododendron and other trees along the way. We clawed our way up the hill at times, slid back down it at others and finally fought our way through a tangled mass of rhododendron to finally emerge just down the hill from the house. It was a fun walk, bit maybe a bit more than either of us had expected.

   We got cleaned up after that and headed into town to meet up with one of Rima's daughters and grandson for some dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. I had this wonderful meal of chicken and carna asada for my meal. With a few chips and salsa thrown in, it changed my mind about the quality and taste, of Mexican food east of the Mississippi River. This was really good stuff!

   On to do some grocery shopping, which is always a lot of fun with a two year old little boy that likes to 'help', before heading back home again where we watched a couple episodes of the first year of the Big Bang Theory. I think Rima is now hooked also.

    Yesterday was just a pleasant day of hanging out around the house. Rima was suppose to work all day, but because of the bad weather the training that she was suppose to be running was cancelled. So we hung out drinking tea, watching the snow and the rain come down and watching a few more BBT shows. We did make and bake a zucchini cake in the afternoon before going out in the cold for a walk. Much less strenuous today, but still enough to let you know you've been doing something other than walking in the mall. Got back in time to eat a piece of still warm cake with some more hot tea. Yum!

    Rima is off to a Quaker meeting this morning and then is having lunch with some friends. I'm going to hang out here until about 1:30 when I'll go meet up with her and head on into Roanoke. We have tickets to the Nut Cracker at 3:00 and then some dinner somewhere there in town. Right now though; there are a few photo's below from a few weeks ago when we were both still down in Florida and it was much, much warmer.

A day at Manatee Springs and Cedar Key Florida - Dec 2013 

This is a small sink hole about 100 yards from the main spring at Manatee Springs State Park. This pool is called Catfish Pool and is actual connected via underground tunnels to the rest of the spring. The whole area below is honeycombed with interconnected waterways of which more than 5 miles of it have actually been explored and mapped by scuba divers.

No Manatees at the spring on the day we were there, other than this one.

A look at the actual pool where the main spring comes up. Over 50 million gallons of water per day come out of this spring, more so in a wet year. You can see the bubbles where the main spring comes out in the right hand side near the top of the water.

Cypress knees along the river.

A pelican over near Cedar Key.

I just like this building for some reason.

 

Rima and yet another Manatee. Even though it's Florida, it was still a little chilly there on that day.

Cormorants and pelicans.

This pelican was perched on the rail of the fishing dock waiting for someone to catch something and feed it to him.

The rest are just more pictures of the pelican.

 

 

 

He was starting to take offense at me getting so close.

  I guess it's been three days already since I last wrote, maybe even closer to four, but I have indeed been busy what with driving across nearly 4 states and battling bad weather and all. But it has all been worth it and today was a marvelously beautiful day here in the mountains of Virginia. Bright blue sky, lot's of sunshine, and a temperature, while not quite up to Florida standards but warm enough to be out and about. But first let me catch up on what has been going on these past few days.

    Started out at 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning, a time, which in my mind, should be banned from use unless you are going fishing, hunting or on a canoe trip. But awake I was, and I soon had my shower and a bite to eat all taken care of. I had packed most everything in the trailer away the night before so it was less than an hour to finish up dumping the tanks, stowing the rest of the gear away and hooking up the trailer to the truck. The trip over to the storage yard took less than 5 minutes and was only about 200 yards away. No problem getting Esmerelda unhooked and set up in her new home. Got the batteries disconnected and the propane turned off at the tanks. Then it was just a matter of closing and locking the doors and getting out on the highway. I think it was actually 7:55 when I pulled out of Otter Springs campground.

    Emma took me on a round about way heading north and east from where I was. Finally hit the interstate and headed east towards Jacksonville. Beautiful sunny and warm all the way out of Florida and through most of Georgia. By 9:00 it was warm enough to actually be using the air conditioner in the truck to keep from sweating. I knew it wouldn't last, and around 11:00, a little after an early lunch, I crossed the weather front line and the sky clouded up and the temperature dropped into the low 60's.

   Pushing on I finally hit rain just south of Charlotte, NC. Of course by this time it was dark and near rush hour and pouring down at times. It took a little while to work my way through all of the traffic and out the north side. It was then only 40-60 miles (?) further on to the border with Virginia.

   By the time I got to the intersection of I-77 and Hwy 221, the turn off for Floyd, it was nearly 7:00 and my stomach was rumbling. Talking to Rima, she volunteered to meet me at a local restaurant in Floyd that we both knew, Micky G's, around 7:30 or so. I actually made it in less time than that, and finally had a chance to sit down and relax and have some much needed food. Wonderful to see Rima again of course, so we had a ton of things to talk about while eating some great Italian food. Just to show how Contra Dancing can have you meeting hundreds, if not thousands, of new friends, a couple I new from Florida walked into the restaurant while we were eating. Rima had known they were moving up to Floyd, but I'm not sure if I knew that bit of information, or if I did, I didn't remember it. But it was nice to see these folks again and spend a few moments talking to them.

    Very cold that night, but the moon was shining when we got back to her place, so it was really nice out. Also nice that the furnace was on and working and that some of the wood I helped cut up a month or two ago was helping to supply some of the heat. I'll tell you though, I was plenty tired after 11 1/2 hours of driving so I was soon tucked into bed, and most likely, snoring away.

    Tuesday was cold!!!! Lot's of hot tea in the morning while watching rain, and a little bit of snow, come down. By noon however the sun was out and the day was looking much better. Still extremely cold, but doable as long as you had a good coat or spent your time outside, inside a truck or car. That is exactly what Rima and I decided to do. She and I took off for Abingdon, a town no one has ever heard of, to pick up a new used car that she had gotten from one of her kids. Of course, since we were going that way any way, we stopped for lunch in the town of Riner and each had a buffalo brisket quesadilla. Man are those things good.

    Nearly two hours over to Abingdon and the temperature seemed to drop the further we drove west. Arrived there, it was actually Lebanon, but no one knows where that is either, and packed up some things her kids had left her along with the car. Of course when it came to actually start back the car wouldn't start having sat for several weeks out in the cold. We did manage to get it jumped however, and after stopping for gas, we were back on the road headed for home. No problems getting back even though it was dark way to early.

    Yesterday was clear and sunny, and need I say it, really, really cold. I spent the morning doing my usual morning routine of email, fb, comics and crossword. Also put together, and cooked up, a big pot of my chicken tangine, a kind of chicken soup, but with a Mediterranean twist to it. It finally warmed up enough in the afternoon that I could get outside and wander around a little bit. It's really beautiful here even without any leaves on the trees. A little muddy out there from the rain and snow that fell, but otherwise very nice. Wandered down the hill to where the spring for the house starts up. Really pretty down in that little drainage vee. Found all kinds of neat trees down in there including dozens of what they call black locust. These trees are every ones nightmare as far as something you do not want to run into by accident. I'm pretty sure that you could be really seriously injured, or even killed, by the thorns these things have. The one good thing about them I hear is that fence posts made out of these things are about as resistant to rot as pressure treated posts. At some point I'll end up down there trimming them all up so they aren't quite as lethal, and then prune them up with the idea of havesting them for fence posts at some point.

   Wandered the rest of the lower and upper pastures checking out trees that need to come down and used as firewood, as well as fence lines that need to be fixed. But it was soon getting dark out and, lucky for me, it was time to head into town and meet up with Rima. She was meeting up with some friends of hers that were putting on a pot luck style soup dinner, and then doing a brief church service/choir performance at a local church. Had a couple bowls of terrific soup along with homemade corn bread, and then took in the service and listened to the singing. Really nice to meet some of the local people and share a meal with them. Seemed like it was what this holiday season is really all about.

     Another cold morning today. I did my usual and then took off for town just before noon. Rima was going to be busy all day and late into the evening, so I thought it would be nice to meet up with her for some lunch at least. We went to Natasha's where I had her version of a hamburger. No one could ever mistake this for a regular burger.... it's just so darn good. Add some home made potato salad and some ice tea and you have nearly a perfect meal.

   Came back to the house afterwards, and even though the temperature was barely above freezing it was so bright and sunny outside that I just had to spend some time there. Went and grabbed an extra coat as well as hat and gloves, and then came out to do some mowing that didn't get done last time I was here. Had a hard time getting the riding mower started because of the cold, but finally got it to go when I jumped it with the truck. Rode all afternoon and managed to get the whole upper pasture cut and cleaned up. There are still areas along the fence lines that have to be cleaned up yet, but that is going to take a chainsaw and machete for a lot of it. The best part is that I finished up just as the sun was going down and headed back to the barn to put the mower away. Didn't quite get that far as the mower died about a 100 yards away from home and nothing I could do would start it back up. Time to check it out when there is more light out there. A little more warmth wouldn't be bad either.

    Just hanging out this evening trying to stay warm. Going to go read my book some and maybe work on some photo's. I hope that the weather will continue to stay clear at least, though it would be nice if the temperature would go back up to the average. But if not, I am sure there will plenty of things for me to do.

   Just finishing up some final packing for my trip tomorrow morning. Was actually up pretty early this morning getting things straightened up and packed away. There's still more stuff to do, but most of the big stuff is now done.

   Got my laundry all done first off. A couple of loads to wash and dry and then put away or pack. I'm going to be gone for more than a month it looks like, so there is a need for all kinds of things that I wouldn't normally take. Of course it would be easy if Esmerelda, my trailer, and home, was going with me. But she is going to be spending the next month or so parked over under a palm tree soaking up the sun and, hopefully, not too much rain.

    Transferred nearly all of the trailer stuff that usually lives in the back of the truck into the trailer so I won't be hauling all of that stuff all the way to West Virginia and back again. So all the hitch stuff, water hoses, spare tire, ladder and other stuff. There will be a little left to deal with tomorrow, but mostly it will be a matter of draining the tanks and putting everything away.

    Packed lots of clothes for the trip of course. First off were all the cold weather clothes I have. Really don't have much of this stuff because usually cold weather just means I turn south and run until I get to warmer temps. But I do keep a couple pairs of gloves, socks and hats around. I also have more than enough polar pile coats, vests and shirts. So I should be ready for most everything except maybe living outdoors for a week or so. The plan is to avoid that though.

   Also had to pack all of my clothes for dancing. Of course this mostly means packing enough black shirts and pairs of pants to get by for 6 days of dancing. But this year there may actually be some dancing done during the morning and afternoon as well as the regular evening dance. So there was a need to pack a few more pairs of everything.

   Lastly was a need to pack stuff for my stay around Floyd. Several pairs of long pants for the cold days there when I want to be outside, as well as a couple dress shirts and a decent pair of new jeans and semi dress up shoes just in case. It's not everything I own here in the trailer, but it is coming pretty close to it.

    I did do a couple outside trailer things earlier this morning. Got my new tarp clips and bungee cords installed on my bike/chair cover. It might actually work, but I'll have to wait and see how it does at full speed going down the highway. The other thing was to get the ladder out and take a look at the roof before tucking the trailer away for a month. Replaced a small piece of roofing patch material that had blown up with the road wind. Also found one small hairline crack in the front vent cover that I had never noticed before. I put some new roofing tape on that and am now wondering if that may be where that last darn bit of water has been leaking in all along. The plan is to replace that vent cover with a new one at some point, but I have yet to find a new one that has the same type of attachment hinge as this one does. Of course the companies that make those kinds of things have all created their own design, so you need to find one that fits so that all you have to do is replace the actual cover and not everything along with it. In this case that would mean replacing a 12v exhaust fan that is integral with the rest of the vent. Something that would run me at least $100 instead of the $20 for just a cover.

    Did a little walking around the park here this afternoon and watched an old movie that I had in the box. Percy Jackson - The Lightning Thief. Actually pretty good if you aren't looking for great plot or acting. It was entertaining enough, and that is all it needed to be today.

    Will try to get a few more pictures ready and posted in the next day or two. I've taken plenty in the last week or so and some of them have even turned out okay. For now though I think I had better go do the rest of the dishes, pack a little bit more, and then go to bed. Morning is going to come pretty early for me tomorrow.

   Just a beautiful day here in middle Florida. A just right temperature this morning when I got up. Wandered around the trailer after my shower with out shoes and the door and all the roof top vents wide open. You can certainly feel the humidity down here, and that is something that I am still having a hard time adjusting to. Not sure how anyone deals with that 'sticky' feeling once it turns off really hot and muggy. But I never stay around here long enough to find out, so it doesn't really matter all that much to me.

    Spent the morning doing all my usual things, food, shower, checking the computer etc. Once that was all done I headed out to Dudley State Park over east of where I'm camped. This state park is made up of an old homestead that has been kept pretty much as it would of been during the last century. So they have the old house and barns as well as all the gardens and fields that they would of had before modernization. Once a year they put on an old time days celebration where they bring in a whole bunch of volunteers to dress up in period costume and show all us modern people how simple things use to be done. So they have people smelting iron and grinding corn, people churning butter and actually doing the wash by hand, cooking dinner and my favorite, grinding up sugar cane and boiling it down into syrup. I wandered around for a couple of hours, had some hot funnel cake, talked to a guy about different citrus trees he was selling, and taking pictures of mules and chickens and turkeys. Took a whole bunch of pictures so there may be a few posted in a day or two.

    Stopped in to Tractor Supply afterwards, as I wanted to see if they had a grommet setter in their tool department. I bought a heavy duty gas grill cover a couple weeks back that I wanted to use to cover up and protect my bike and outdoor chairs with. They hang on a bike rack that I have mounted to the back bumper of the trailer, and it works real well as far as carting all of that around and keeping it out of the way, while still keeping them all available for use. The only problem with the grill cover is that there is nothing to keep it from blowing off while tooling down the highway at 65 mph. So they didn't have any grommet setter sets, but they did have some of these tarp clips that look like they might work. They attach to the edge of a tarp in some manner, I think it might be magic, but they have a place to hook on bungee cords  at the other end. So I am going to give it a try and see how it works.

    Just hanging out at Micky D's using their WiFi signal and drinking way to much caffeinated soda. Tomorrow the plan is to do laundry and pack up as much as possible in preparation for my trip north on Monday. I talked to a couple of friends back west yesterday and I am so glad I am not back there right now. Below zero in Denver and more than twenty below in Chadron. The thought of temperatures that cold just make me cringe. It also makes me hope that come Monday I don't end up driving right into a nasty ice/snow storm in Virginia. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.

   So I fell asleep on the couch last night... had started out watching the movie 'Good Will Hunting', (what does that name mean anyway? Are they hunting Will? Is the character Will good?), and the next thing I knew it was nearly 11:30. Guess getting only 5 hrs of sleep at night really isn't enough for me after all. Did manage to get a full quota of sleep last night however, so perhaps that won't happen to me again tonight. Not that there is much of a problem if I fall asleep on the couch every night, it's just easier if I go to bed while I'm still awake enough to undress first.

    An otherwise busy day running errands again today. Had to make another post office run to mail off my last Christmas present. Now if they will all just show up in time I'll be really happy. From there it was on to the Discount Tire Store in Gainsville in order to get the truck tires rotated and rebalanced. Now, except for packing up the trailer and getting my gear together, I think everything else is pretty much ready.

    The shop got the tires all taken care of in less than an hour, and then it was on to the Mexican restaurant that my friend Rima and I had discovered a couple of days ago. Wanted to try something different this time around, so today my meal was a chivo  (sp) burrito, which is pulled goat meat, along with the standard refried beans and rice. Add to that some freshly made chips and salsa and an ice cold drink, all for a little more than $10, with tip, and you have one remarkably good meal. I ate out on the patio so that I could enjoy the beautiful weather while reading my book. Gainsville had a new record high today, 83 degrees Fahrenheit. I feel a little bad that a lot of the rest of the country is experiencing sub zero weather, but I am also happy that I am not there to share it with them.

    My last stop of the afternoon was at the Trader Joe's store, where I ran in and picked up a case of their, now, 4-buck chuck wine in various iterations. One of the best things about contra dancing for 6 days in Morgantown, VW the day after Christmas, is the after dance gathering every night. People have just danced for 4 hours and now it's time to relax, eat a few snacks, listen to everyone jamming, tell a few jokes and rehydrate in one way or another. Wine probably isn't the best way to do that, but it sure tastes good, and it's a lot of fun. What is even better is that in this case, if you happen to consume enough alcohol that you couldn't safely drive afterwards, you just stumble down a corridor or two and figure out which door your room is behind. So much better than going outside in the cold.

    Need to get back to the trailer now though. I want to start thinking about everything I will be needing over the next month or so. It's going to be a lot of stuff, but lucky for me... I have a truck.

    Really nice day today. Woke up early, about 9:00, considering I didn't actually go to bed until well after 3:00 a.m. last night. That is what happens when you find a new Lee Child novel featuring his main character, Jack Reacher. I didn't get all the way through it before finally going to bed last night, but I did manage to get well into it. So it was no surprise to me that I spent several hours today finishing up the rest of that book. Like usual it is a bitter sweet reality that now that I'm done with that book, I will have to go out and find yet another good one to read. Not to fear though..... there are still at least a Bazillion other books out there that are still needing to be read.

    Did a few minor chores around the trailer this afternoon, and then took off and did some walking around the park I'm in. Nothing really remarkable during all of that, but it was just so nice to spend time outdoors in this wonderful weather. Part of what I have done today is read about the huge storm that is piling into some of the western states. Nearly 30 below zero in some areas with wind chills well below that. It all sounds way to cold for me and I am so glad to not be out there right now.

    Going to hang out around the trailer later this evening, most likely reading and maybe watching a movie. Will try to get into Gainsville again tomorrow for a bit. There are a few more items yet to be done, maybe the biggest being a trip to the tire store to have the truck tires rotated and checked before getting on the road again. Also need to get to the post office one last time and maybe.... go have some good Mexican food again. :)

   Just a beautiful day down here in mid Florida today. Woke up to a misty, rather foggy morning, but it soon burned off, and by this afternoon the temperature was a very pleasant 82 degrees with nearly unlimited sunshine.

    I had a lot to do today so I was up pretty early, but still had plenty of time to cook and eat a nice breakfast and deal with getting some Christmas gifts all wrapped up and ready to mail. Finally headed out the door around 11:00 and my first stop was the office here at Otter Springs. Wanted to get the trailer all squared away as far as where it was going to be for the next month and a half while I was on the road. My first thought was to just leave the trailer where it currently is, all hooked up to electric, water and sewer while I was away. It makes some sense as I would not have to empty the fridge/freezer and I could keep one of my portable heaters on low to keep things from freezing even though I would be turning off the water while I was gone. Plus a whole month there would only cost me $360, so not too much really. Until I found out that I could park my trailer in their storage area for a grand total of $25 for the whole month. I could also set it up so that I could then just swoop in at the end of that time and move my trailer over to an already reserved spot when I wanted to. Seemed like a much better deal to me than what I had cooked up, so I went ahead and did the paperwork for that to all happen, and it will commence as of next Monday.

    From there it was on to the post office in Trenton to mail off a package to friends in Colorado. Continuing on into Gainsville afterwards to do a little last minute shopping, I found a couple things I needed and then went and had a bit of late lunch. Coming out from lunch it seemed like it might be fun to go and watch a real movie for a change. So it was off to the local theatre to spend the afternoon watching the newest Hunger Games movie. I was actually quite impressed with it over all. The acting was good and the plot was even pretty decent considering it is a sequel. A pleasant way to spend a couple hours anyway.

    The only problem was that it was dark when I came out from the movie. But there were only a couple of things that still needed doing, so I made my way over to Target to pick up a couple more things and then on to Barnes and Noble for the last of my gifts. Along the way I also found a copy of the movie Good Will Hunting for under $5, so I picked that up for myself in order to have something to watch some night when there isn't anything better to do.

   About ready to head back to camp right now, just want to finish this up and check a few more things on line while the WiFi is free. More to do tomorrow, but I'll leave that for then. Right now though; here are a couple more pictures from this past week.

Scenes from Otter Springs - Dec 2013 

A view of the Suwanee River out by Otter Springs. I've taken many pictures from this spot over the years... I never grow tired of looking at it.

Forgot that these little guys are actually non natives to Florida having come in from Texas and further west over the years. They are all over the place these days, and are rather interesting to see while walking out in the woods. Usually hard to sneak up on, this one wasn't paying attention and came right at me as I stood still on the trail. Once they figure out what you are they can really take off and run. Guess that comes with knowing that nearly everything out there wants to eat you for dinner.

   Another short post for the day just so I can post a few photo's from a couple of days ago. Here are some pictures I took over at Payne's Prairie State Park just south of the town of Gainsville, Florida. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day out so there were plenty of alligators and other wildlife out there to see. It was even more fun to have my friend Rima, from Virginia, down here to share it with.

 

Payne's Prairie State Park near Gainsville, Florida 

Nov. 30, 2013

Looking out towards the 'prairie' part of Payne's Prairie State Park. Still love seeing all the huge old 'Live Oaks' covered with Spanish Moss.

There is so much more water here than there was last year. Much of this water way was dry at that time, so all of the alligators, turtles and other wildlife were really crowded together. I liked this view because of the wonderful tree colors and the reflections.

Part of that wildlife I was talking about. I like the sentence at the bottom of the sign.

Warm weather so there were a lot of alligators out sunning themselves. This one is about average at maybe 10' long. Always hard to estimate length and it's one of those things where I'm really not willing to go put a tape on it.

A couple of more along this side of the waterway, but check out all of them on the other side.

A couple more fun little signs to pay attention to. This is my girlfriend Rima.

More.
 

I'm about 20 feet away from this one, but in many ways it doesn't feel like enough. I just keep remembering a lecture I heard from some ranger somewhere who told me that gators are very capable of running down any human they want to over a short distance. They can also jump or lunge out of the water as much as 10-12 feet and have been known to climb 16-20 foot chain link fences with no problem. It gives you pause to realize that we really aren't the top of the food chain after all.

A blue heron that was out looking for breakfast.

Some more Spanish Moss blowing in the wind.