Got back from a fabulous weekend of dancing late last night. Once again we were off for a couple of days of hot and heavy contra dancing. This time we headed north and west to Cincinnati Ohio. The dance weekend is known as the 'Pig Town Fling', and featured the music of Perpetual e-Motion with the main calling duties going to Rick Mohr and Duggan Murphy.
   A slightly shorter commute there and back this weekend, only 7-8 hours of driving both ways this time. Not a bad drive really, both travel days were pretty sunny even though cold. There were some nice views along the way and it was fun to be a passenger for a change and actually be able to view some of the scenery.
    We arrived in time to check in at our hotel and go and get some dinner before the dance started on Friday night. Our hotel was right off the river front in Newport Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and only a couple of miles from the dance venue. Our dining choice for the night was a small Japanese-Asian Cafe only a block from the dance. Rima had a wonderful stir fry ginger chicken concoction while I made do with a sauteed, lightly breaded flounder with appropriate veggies, all done in a light, slightly spicy black bean sauce. Yum!
   Music for the Friday night dance was provided by the band 'Eufor', four guys on various instruments all doing a very nice job of providing fun, danceable tunes. Seven full lines of dancers, somewhere around 450 people, all smiling and having a really good time. I danced hard for the first half of the dance, about an hour and forty five minutes worth, and then took it a little bit easier during the second half. Only doing one or two contras and finishing up with the final waltz. Not sure if it was just too much travel or too many people or what the problem was, but it was fine to sit out a bit and just watch all the twirling and dancing going on. It looked like butterflies from up above in the stands.
   Rima went to several of the classes on Saturday morning, and danced the advanced contra dances in the afternoon. It was raining, and sort of snowing by that time so I spent a pleasant time wandering around Home Depot looking at tools and buying grape vines to plant once the fence is finished back at Rimas place.
    We met up again late in the afternoon and tried to go over and tour the aquarium right next door to the hotel, but it seemed like most of the local residents had the same idea, so we settled for an early dinner at an Irish Pub where we ate scotch eggs, colcannon and fish and chips.
    Saturday evening was the main dance for the weekend and it was a hot, sweaty, raucous ride for the whole four hours. We were now up to a full eight lines with somewhere around 500 people dancing to the tunes of Perp. e-Motion. Such fun, it seemed to be over just after it had started. Lots of good dances, lots of fun partners, the music and calling were perfect and it was over way to soon, even if there had been a full four hours of fun.
    Considering all of the dancing the night before we were both up remarkably early yesterday morning. A late morning meal over at a local I-hop of all places. Eggs, sausage, pancakes.... just the fuel needed for yet another 3 hours of high energy dancing before leaving for home. Only slightly fewer people there for the last session, so back to only 7 full lines. By the time it was all over I was pretty much bushed.
    Another 7-8 hours of driving back to Floyd, but it was pleasant enough riding through the back country of Ohio just north of the river. Still it was after 11:00 when we finally pulled into the driveway last night. Cold, but very clear with plenty of stars shining out of the sky.
     A beautiful day here today finally. I am hoping that we have now seen the last of the snow, but only time will tell on that. For the moment though I need to finish up some paper work, put some dinner on to cook and then get outside for a few hours. But first; here are a few pictures from last weekends tour of the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic art in Memphis. There will be additional photo's to come as I find time to load and annotate them. Enjoy!

Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art in Memphis Tennessee Mar 2014

 

One of the first things you see when you enter is the Bridal Sedan made totally out of jade. What an amazing piece of art work.

Another view.

Within the collection were dozens of curved elephant and mammoth tusks. This is one of a matched pair carved to show a series of elephants. 

A close up of another carved tusk. Every piece of it is carved in this exquisite detail. 

One of my favorites. This close up shows a lady of high station being escorted by her entourage. 

Yet another carved tusk. This one is a mammoth tusk showing running horses along its length. I like the old ivory look and color that the old mammoth tusks have. 

Just one more close up showing the amazing detail in some of these carvings. It makes me think that it must of taken years for some of these sculptures to be carved. 

Another type of sculpture. This one showing a ivory dragon fish with 14 monkeys at play. I just find these works of art to be really beautiful.

A full sized tea kettle carved out of red jade.

A teak and other precious wood sitting platform flanked by two carved jade lamps.

*

   It stayed cold and snowy pretty much all day yesterday. There was a little time there right at the end where it actually got warm enough to melt some of the snow and turn everything muddy. Rima and I both went out for an hour or so and fed the horses and walked out to the mailbox. I even had enough energy to hand saw part of a tree that over hung the deck off. The best part is that I managed to cut it off with out dropping it on either the house or the wood shed. Still need to go back and clean up the cut, but I'll break out the chainsaw for that.  It'll be easier and cleaner that way.


   Otherwise it was to cold and wet to be outside for long. I hung out inside all evening and finished downloading photo's from the trip to Memphis. I screwed up and didn't take my camera with me when we walked into town, so I only had the phone to take pictures with. Not a big deal until it comes time to download them. With more than 90 photos it took some time to e-mail them all to myself one at a time and then download them to a separate file. That now leaves me with sorting and then cropping some of them, but with any luck there will even be a few posted here at some point.


    A nicer day outside today so I need to get outside and enjoy some of it while I can. There are trees to cut up and more fence posts to plant, but first on the list will be checking out the truck. I'm pretty sure I managed to blow a couple of fuses this last weekend, so that now 2 of the 3 cigarette lighter ports are no longer working. Since I plug in phones, GPS, radios as well as a DC to AC inverter, I really need to get them back up and working.


   Also need to just check the truck over and see that every thing is still running and filled up as needed. We will be heading out again  tomorrow morning. This time we are headed for Cincinnati and another weekend contra dance. Looking forward to dancing hard again, and there are likely to be more people that we know at this dance. Will not be taking the computer again as there never seems to be any time to do anything with it even if I do take it. So I'll be off line again until at least Sunday night if not Monday.

   Got back to Floyd late Sunday night, or perhaps it is better to say, Monday morning since it was nigh onto 3:30 a.m. when we finally pulled in and stumbled down the path to the house. We had left Floyd last Friday morning headed for Memphis Tennessee. There was a weekend contra dance starting on Friday night and going through Sunday afternoon. A 10 hour drive each way, which may seem like a lot to most people, but this dance had the Great bear Trio playing the music and Nils doing most of the calling. So Rima and I both thought it was worth it to go... and now that it is over with, we both still feel that way, so it must of been a fun time.





   Friday was just one long drive west from here. But the weather was good, lot's of sun and even some real warmth as we travelled west and then south. We motored into Memphis by 5:30 and got checked into our hotel. A 'Quality' Inn; it was within walking distance of downtown Memphis and only a little more than a mile from the dance hall in the other direction. The 6' high iron fence all around it, as well as a high security presence on the grounds of the hotel were a little disconcerting at first. But it soon became apparent that this was pretty standard around most of the downtown area, and even out to some of the outlying areas, and it soon faded into the background of thought, like such things often do.




   We soon headed out towards the dance hall with the intention of finding some dinner to eat along the way. As we drove east we came across this little Vietnamese restaurant in the middle of an old strip mall. Keeping company with a laundry mat and insurance office, among other things, it wasn't much to look at... but what a find. Opening the menu one of the first things to note was that they served not only the very common 'Pho' styles of soup, but also the less well known, 'Bun', which just happens to be my all time favorite. Rima and I both had a bowl, which in this case, consisted of shredded lettuce, cucumber, bean sprouts and pickled carrots along with B-B-Q pork slices and a chopped up egg roll. All placed in a large soup bowl with fish sauce to pour over it. It was wonderful... and a perfect meal before a hard, hot night of dancing.






   The dance was in an old stone church just outside of downtown Memphis. It has only a small floor for dancing, so the number of dancers is somewhat limited. Still, it was a nice full evening with 3 solid lines of dancers for most of it. Of course the 'Bears' are always in top form it seems, so dancing was fun right from the start. Nils has a rather laid back way of calling which usually means a minimal amount of instruction and starting to dance right off the bat. As long as your mind is still functioning, it is a great way to maximize how much dancing can be done in any one evening. Of course by the end of the night, when you are hot, tired and dehydrated, and brain cells are just dying by the millions right out there on the dance floor, or so it seems, a little more walk through is often needed as well a switch to some easier dances. Or so it seems to me.




    We danced from 7:30 until 10:30 by which time I was moving more like a zombie than a human. But it is wonderful what a few hours of sleep, a hot shower, some good drugs and some food will do for you. We were up and going early on Saturday again. After a quick bite to eat at the hotel we headed west towards downtown Memphis. It was only a total of 10-12 blocks from where we were all the way to the Mississippi River. We wandered down Union Street, one of the main east-west streets in and out of town until we  could cross over to Beale Street and walk down all of its length to the river. Not much goes on it seems, early in the morning on Beale Street. It may be that it is just normal for nothing to be open before noon on a Saturday morning.... or it may have something to do with to much fun and excitement until late the night before. I am inclined to believe it is the later. But no big problem as we just wanted to stroll the area and read all the history signs they have up, and look at some of the famous places that are still standing. Over on Union Street was the original 'Sun Records' building where Elvis walked in one day and had his first meeting with the owner. The rest as they say 'is history'.


  We wandered over into the center of town and spent an hour or so touring the 'Cotton Museum', located down where the original cotton exchange once was. Very interesting to learn about one, if not thee, most important crops of the south. Memphis was built on the fortunes made and lost in the cotton economy of the late 1800's. Wrapped around the whole story of cotton of course, was the parallel economy of the slave labor that made it all possible. Put it all together and you can still see what all the different pieces are that now make up the modern city of Memphis, as well as much of the rest of the south. Along with artifacts from the old cotton culture there was also information on the modern day cultivation and harvesting of cotton. One interesting tidbit of info I read about was that where as it would once take one person 10 minutes to pick and separate the cotton off of 6 cotton plants, there are now row pick machines than can pick, separate, de-seed and neatly pack into bales, the cotton from more than 6,300 plants in 10 minutes. All while sitting in air conditioned splendor, perhaps listening to some Delta Blues on the stereo. It also seemed like it was mostly propaganda put out by the GMO cotton seed manufactures to push their Round-up ready products. For me though, one of the most interesting pieces of information in the exhibit was the admission that already there were Round-up resistant weeds coming on, as well as 'Bt' resistant insects, including boll weevils, and for corn crops, the corn root worm borer.






   Once done with the cotton museum it was time for a little lunch. We found a pleasant little café just off main street and ate outside while watching trolly cars and horse drawn carriages go up and down the street. I had some pulled beef hash over potatoes and onions with a fried egg and some kind of spicey sauce over it all. Rima on the other hand had fried chicken and waffles. Now I know it sounds a little strange, but really it tastes pretty good. Really! Add in some bourbon blueberry compote and make the waffles with sweet potatoes and you have a pretty tasty meal.






   After lunch we still had a couple of hours before dancing started up again so we went and found the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art, in the basement of one of the downtown hotels, to visit. Not knowing what to expect we were surprised, no, actually astounded, to stumble across one of the best art museums I've ever been through. The Asian section made up most of the display with several large rooms just full of jade, ivory and material works of art. It would of been amazing to see one carved elephant or mammoth tusk in the detail that these works of art showed. But in this case, there were dozens of them, some even carved in pairs. Each one showing incredible detail that must of taken years and years to carve. Add to that incredible statues, vases, tea pots and other art objects made out of beautiful jade of all colors including white, black red and tigers eye. Every single item in the display was worthy of a place of honor in a regular museum, here though you had hundreds of them. After a while it almost became to overwhelming.




    Secondary to the Asian Art, but still an important part of the Museum, was a whole section on Judaic art work. Large paintings and statues created by historic and ancient as well as modern Jews. It is a very interesting exhibition and I am not sure of the whole story or history of the Museum, but I do know this about the collections. The Asian and Judaic art was collected by a Mr. Jack Belz and his wife Marilyn starting in 1968 when he was CEO of Belz Enterprizes. They decided to donate their art in 1995, and by 1998 had created a foundation to deal with the intricacies of making it into a museum.  In addition to the original Judaic art, the museum is now in the process of creating it's own Holocaust exhibit compleat with documents, photos and testimonials of those who were there that lived and died. In any case I would highly recommend going to the museum if you happen to be in the area. Not only is the art impressive, but at $6 as an entry fee, it is also remarkably cheap to visit.




   Once we finished up at the Belz Museum it was time to walk back to the hotel and change clothes for the dance that evening. We each changed and then headed back to the same Vietnamese Restaurant we had eaten at the night before. Rima had the same 'Bun Soup while I switched over to a chicken with lemon grass and spicy green chili curry. Really good food once again.




    Dancing started at 8:00 that night and it was a fun evening for all.... except maybe Nils who had come down with that 24-48 hour flu that has been hitting a lot of people this year. He was out for the night unfortunately, but several locals stepped forward to call, and the evening was saved. I won't say that Nils wasn't missed, because he was, but the locals did a good job and we all had fun along the way.




    Slept late on Sunday morning and then got tricked into going over to an hours worth of waltzing starting at 10:00. Not really that onerous of a job to do, and it was soon over with anyway. Once done there we went in search of some real food as we didn't really have any breakfast to speak of. Found another nice little restaurant just blocks away from the dance. This time featuring Indian food. We were just in time for a Sunday buffet and we took advantage of it to eat some really good food, most of which I can't remember the name of. But it was good and we ate our fill before we headed back for our final couple hours of contra dancing.




   Nils was back for that last session. Yeah! Like most weekend dances these last few hours were some of the very best of the best. Great Bear Trio broke out some of their best songs and Nils supplied us with fun dances that were challenging. But all good things seem to come to an end and this weekend was no different. We hit the road out of town a bit after 3:00 and headed back east for Floyd.


     Rima drove for a couple of hours while there was still light out and then I took over from there. It was a long drive, but nothing out of the ordinary. I turned the I-pod on and dialed up some good tunes. Rima slept in the back and it wasn't long before we were pulling into the driveway and scaring all the deer out of the pasture.


    Needless to say I slept in late on Monday, but not as late as I expected too. It was still an odd day and I didn't do much but catch up on the comics and read my email all day. I did finally go outside while the weather was good and spend a couple of hours trimming up more trees. There are a bunch of blackthorn trees in the lower pasture and I started trimming a couple of them up. It might actually be easier to just cut them all down, but they are so hard and rot resistant that they may come in handy some day as fence posts. It would be easier though if these trees didn't have thorns everywhere on them. Even with gloves on it was a bit 'pokey'.


    Yesterday was a snow day. It started early in the morning and the ground was covered before I even woke up. Probably snowed 5-6 inches during the day, but most of it was gone by the afternoon and the rest will be gone by the end of today. Other than an hour or so outside late in the afternoon it was another day to just stay in and goof off. Being cold out it was time to do some cooking so I put together one of my zucchini cakes and baked it. Soon the whole house had a wonderful smell to it. What was even better was the taste of a piece of it along with a nice cup of hot tea. Also put together a nice pot of chicken and dumplings for our dinner. It was a bit of a spur of the moment dish to put together, but it turned out well and was just right for a cold and snowy evening.


   Today is another snow day as it snowed again last night. Just enough to cover the roads and make driving treacherous on these steep, winding and un-plowed roads. Rima is home again and that is always nice. Otherwise I'll just have to see what the rest of the day will bring. In the meantime... I'm finally caught up... for the moment anyway. Not going to claim it won't happen again, There is just to much to do that is more fun. I do hope to have some more photo's to post soon. But first I need to figure out how to download them off my phone.

    The weather finally turned nice yesterday. Not exactly hot out there, but at least it stopped raining and snowing and the sun was actually out for most of the afternoon. Still cool in the morning though, so it was spent doing my usual routine of reading and doing the crossword puzzle. Also worked a bit on my taxes, but became stymied when they wanted some bank info that I thought I had... but didn't. Do you know how hard it is to break into your own account when you haven't been into it for several years and have forgotten all the passwords and user ID's? All that back and forth, trying to remember answers to security questions you set up years ago. It finally got done, and I think the info I needed is now in my hands, but what a pain in the butt.


    It was much better to just give up on that for the day and head out to the big city. Headed into Christiansburg for a few items on my shopping list. On top was a new pair of tennis shoes for dancing. That's right, we are headed to Memphis tomorrow for a fun weekend of contra dancing to the Great Bear Trio with calling by Nils. It's a 10 hour drive so I hear, but what the heck, great dancing requires some commitment.


   Also picked up some groceries while in town, including stocking up on a couple more corned beef briskets while they were still on sale. They may not be all that healthy for you, but it sure does taste good, and making one every other month or so should be okay. Also a few other things were picked up, including potatoes and other veggies and a nice pineapple which I hope will be ripe in a few days.


   On the way back out of town there was one last stop at Home Depot to pick up a couple of 1"x6"x 6' fence stave's. I wanted to let Rima have a look at them, as I want to use them as a replacement for some of the barn siding which is starting to rot and fall off. I also want to use them as material for a couple bird houses that I want to build. But that may not happen until the weather turns off bad again. Which is bound to happen at some point or another. For right now though, the weather outside is even better than yesterday. With any luck some of the mud will dry out a bit by noon and it will warm up sufficiently to make me want to go outside and build more fence.


   One last thing while I'm thinking about it; it has been real pleasant sitting here at the kitchen table drinking my hot tea this morning. Just outside, not more than 50 feet away have been 5 deer browsing through the trees. It seems that most are eating acorns from under the leaves, but several have been sampling small twigs off some of the trees and a couple were standing up on their hind legs in order to reach the lower leaves on some of the rhododendrons that are just down the hill. Pretty cool.

   Had a very nice weekend overall, even though the weather was a little bit on the dicey side for most of it. Saturday was mostly cloudy, but warm enough to be outside. I took a trip into town to pick up some more fence building stuff. Found the little tool that is needed in order to turn the tension adjuster on high tension wire. It's nothing more than a little 'U' shaped piece of metal with a handle and a small rod that clips into the cogs that are on each tensioner. It looks very much like the mechanism on a standard 'come-a-long' if you know what one of those are.

    In addition I stopped at Home Depot and picked out a new 20 amp drill/hammer drill combo. It's beautiful.... and it works too, as I found out later while drilling holes in a couple of fence posts. I managed to get a couple more post holes dug and the posts set as well as finishing up the brace posts at the end of the fence line. All in all it wasn't a bad days work.

   It being Saturday night and all, Rima and I went out and had dinner at the local Mexican restaurant in Floyd. I have to say that I am starting to like that place more and more as I eat some of their different meals. I am finding that the secrete is to stay away from the more Americanized meals like burritos, enchiladas, tacos and anything that comes with their 'cheese sauce' on it. Instead go with more of the traditional meals and you'll do fine.

    Sunday was cold and grey, and later in the day rainy and snowy. So not a terrific day overall. Mostly it was an indoor day of reading and working on a jigsaw puzzle. We did get out and take a nice walk, but it was rather cold and wet to stay out for very long..

   Yesterday, Monday,  was even colder and wetter than the day before. All the schools and govt. services shut down because of all the ice and snow on the roads. There wasn't a lot of snow really, but everything was coated with a layer of ice that didn't really melt any until well into the afternoon. Rima got to stay home for the day also, which was nice. She worked of course, while I just goofed off, but we had a good time and got to interact some during the day. I had put one of those corned beef roasts in the crock pot on Sunday night and by lunch time on Monday it was 'fall apart' tender.... tasted good also.

   Rima had tickets to the symphony that night and we debated off and on if it was safe to go or even worth going out for it. In the end we decided to take a short drive down to the feed store for some sweet feed for the horses and then decide from there whether we were going on or not. We ended up going with it, and very happy we did. The program was made up of mostly Russian composers including Igor Stravinsky's 'The Firebird Suite' and Sergei Prokofiev's 'Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78'. In addition to the full symphony this time, they also had nearly 175 choral singers from 3 different choirs that sang the choral parts of the Prokofiev's piece. They also had a separate Mezzo Soprano, Tara Bouknight singing the part of 'The Field of the Dead' in Prokofiev's piece, where she is lamenting the loss of her loved one. It was profoundly beautiful and doubly nice because Rima actually knows her and her family.

   There were also two other pieces performed last night. The first by a local composer, Steve Brown, was entitled 'Blue Ridge Rhapsody'. A very pretty little piece that invoked some of the big time symphony sound at first, as well as some that had a more 'back hollow' fiddle jam feel to it near the end. I liked it!  Then finally, for an encore, and because it was St Patrick's Day, the strings in the orchestra performed 'O Danny Boy,' with the whole choir humming along to the tune.  What a splendid way to end an evening.

   Today has started out cold, snowy and grey again. Everybody is still shut down and it now appears likely that the schools will now have to extend their year because they have already used up their regular 14 days of 'snow days' for the year. It is warming up enough that the ice is starting to melt off of the trees, but now it just looks like it is raining again. If it stays calm then it may be nice enough to go out for a walk later. There are a couple final pictures from the contra dance week down in St Croix posted below. They involve a few of us learning how to make baskets out of native materials from one of the locals there on the island. They only thing that isn't shown is the finished product, which we did manage to get back to the states in Rima's suitcase. I just haven't gotten around to taking a picture of them yet. But right now I need to get on to doing my income tax for the year.

Contra Dance Week on St Croix - Feb 2014 

A local women, in the middle in the dark blue shirt, brought a whole lot of local plant materials over and held a class for a few of us on how to make some simple native style baskets. Rima is busy with the style she was teaching that day, while I worked at making one that looked more like the one at the bottom of the photo.

Rima is busy weaving away while in the background you have the bay to look at any time you needed a break. 

Rima managed to get hers done, and a very fine basket it is considering the rough material and the time constraints. Just right for gathering chicken eggs I think. 

One final view from our island beach as in the distance the schooner Roseway sails in towards the harbor. What a wonderful week it was to be down on a warm tropical island.

*

    Built more fence yesterday afternoon, as it turned out to be warm enough to be outside again.
With any luck I'll even get out there and do some more work this afternoon, though yesterday was a bit frustrating. First on the list of frustrations was my cordless drill pooped out on me. It could of been because of all the water that leaked in on it when the roof in the trailer, remember I live in a trailer most of the time, was still leaking over my bed. So it leaked in on my drill, never a good thing to happen on electrical or electronic stuff, and now it doesn't work so good. Who would of thought!


    The basic problem then became an inability to drill holes in the ends of brace posts for support pins to fit in. I managed to get one pin set in a couple of inches before the drill died, so then it was a matter of swinging a sledge hammer a bazillion times before I could drive it on in the rest of the way. So today I'm off to the big city again in order to find a new cordless drill. I think this time though that I'll go with a larger 18-25 amp one that also has a hammer drill feature. Cuz I'm a guy and we use any excuse we can find, to go out and buy more power tools.


    Second on my list of frustrations yesterday, was digging one of the post holes down to 2'-6" deep and then running into the hardest hard-pan I've ever encountered. I even went and got a bucket of water and poured it in, and that didn't even help. In fact the water was still in the hole more than two hours later, but the bottom was still hard as could be, and no, it isn't a rock. Will check it out again first thing this afternoon, but it may be that I settle for that depth, and then end up cutting the top off by 6 inches.


   Met up with Rima after she was done with work last night, and we ended up going to dinner at a place called 'Good Fellows'. I had a very nice cheese burger and she had fish tacos. The nice thing was they had a couple musicians playing while we ate that were a lot of fun to listen to. Afterwards it was back to the house and time for a short little walk before heading indoors for the rest of the night. But now it's time to get out in the sunshine.


  

    Yesterday felt extremely cold to me for some reason. Not sure if it was the actual temperature, which was only 23 degrees or so, the higher humidity back here, or all of the wind that felt like it was coming right off the polar ice cap. Or maybe it was all of the above. The only thing I know is that it felt too cold to really want to be outside much.... so I wasn't. Instead I spent some of the morning dealing with changing my address with all my banking, credit card and other important entities. Does everyone else out there know what it is like to try to log into a bank web site you haven't looked at for more than 5 years? Of course I don't know my ID number, or pin, or secrete handshake or anything else. It finally got done though, and I hope it is all done, for the time being at least.


    That is not to say that I stayed indoors the whole day. Around noon the truck and I headed into Floyd to have lunch with Rima. We wanted to go to Natasha's, but when we got there it was an abrupt disappointment to find out that Natasha's is 'no more'..... as in gone, kaput, out of business! What a bummer! Not sure what is going on with that, but am sure the story will all come out at some point.


   So we went to Micky G's instead.... not that it is a bad thing to do, the food is great, but we were hoping for Natasha's. I had a basic calzone with the sausage and pepperoni and veggies and hot melted ricotta all covered with home made sauce.... it's like a little piece of heaven right here in Virginia. Rima had some kind of smothered steak with mushrooms and stuff and panzeratti off the special menu. It was also very tasty.


    I headed back to the house thinking it was time to actually do my taxes, but even though it was still cold, it was very sunny outside, so that is where I wanted to be. Grabbed the pruning shears and headed out to the lee side of the house to clean up some branches that had been dropped there. Got all of them cut up and disposed of as needed and also cleaned up some other fallen stuff. I even braced some fence up that was falling down. Will have to actually deal with it in a more permanent manner at some point, but at least now the horses can't just step over it.


    A good meal last night and then a good nights sleep. Today looks good for actually getting outdoors and getting some work done. So time to get out there and start digging post holes again.

   A good day overall yesterday. After finally catching up on this blog it was time to head out for some shopping in Blacksburg. I needed to go out and find some fencing materials that I had failed to pick up last time I was out. So onto  Tractor Supply where I picked up wire tensioners, a couple short straps for hooking around posts and then onto my come-alongs, a couple of other fencing tools and assorted other odds and ends. The one thing I didn't get though was a couple of baby chickens, even though they had bunches of them there at the store... and they were so-o-o cute.


    From there it was on to Lowes where I had noticed that they had a Dewalt 12" sliding miter saw with stand on sale the last time I had been in. Using some work I plan to do around Rima's place as an excuse, it was too much for me not too have one. So I bought it. So now that I have all this stuff, I guess it will be time to actually go out and do some work.


   Of course the weather is holding me up right now. Yesterday it was pouring down rain for a lot of the day and super windy. There was even a 80'-100' pine tree that came down just below the house. It certainly made a lot of noise, and it's going to be a real pain to clean up, as it fell right on two other trees that had broken down before.


    Last night it snowed again. Only about an inch though, and the sun is now shining and melting it all. But it did mean that Rima could stay home and work here this morning. Most of the snow is gone though so we are going to head into town and have lunch at Natasha's. I'm hoping that by the time I get back here it will be clear and warm enough that I can get outside and get some work done. Mostly it is just to cold out because of all of the wind. Will just have to wait and see I guess.

   So.... several more days have now passed without a post.... life is good, so I'm not too sorry that I have been out and about instead of inside writing. But I'll do my best to catch up a little bit today.


   Going back to last Thursday; it was cold and windy all day as I recall so I was inside for most of that day just trying to stay warm. It was late in the afternoon when I ventured out and into
Floyd to meet up with Rima. We went and had this wonderful dinner at a local place there called Micky G's. What appears to be a simple pizza and pasta restaurant, and they do make very good pizza and pasta, is actually a really fine little Italian restaurant. We both ended up ordering one of the specials of the night, I had the grilled tuna steak over a bed of angel hair pasta with a garlic, olive oil and caper sauce, 'YUM', and Rima had a grilled steak with fresh veggies. Now I realize that none of that sounds very Italian, but everything was fresh, and all of it was similar to meals I had the last time I was in Italy.


    Of course, that was only the start of the evening. From there it was on to the 'Jackson Center for the Arts' in the town of Floyd, for an evening of classical music featuring the Talich Quartet from Czechoslovakia.  Playing a program that featured pieces from Czech composers, they did the 'Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.51 by Anton Dvorak as their first piece. Rima and I were sitting in the front row right in front of the stage, so that put us both about 8 feet from the performers, what a nice way to watch music being made.


    They played two other selections, one from Leos Janacek and one from Bedrich Smertana, both of which were terrific. Included with the program was a little reception after the performance where they had munchies and drinks and you could talk to the performers if you wanted. Rima and I, but mostly Rima, charmed the Viola player and talked to him about the tour and how the 6 hour time difference was hard on them all. It was great fun and when we walked out doors we discovered that it had started snowing.


    It must of snowed most of the night, though there was only an inch or two on the ground when we woke up. It was enough to keep all the kids and others out of work and off the roads for the day. Cold outside of course, but also quite pretty in its own way. We stayed in for most of the day with Rima working from home and me doing what I do best... goofing off. She did need to go into the office at one point though, so we piled into the car and drove on in.


   From there we headed on to Roanoke because she had gotten a couple tickets to a concert there for the evening. First we had a really good meal at a little Mexican restaurant right near downtown. I had a superb meal of carnitas and Rima had something neither one of us could pronounce. Both meals were very tasty and filling and we went on to the concert happy. That nights selection was the world renowned banjo god, Bela Fleck. Along with him that night was Abigail Williams his wife, (?) who also plays a mean banjo. In all I think there were at least 7 different banjos on stage that night, and everyone of them got a good work out. Another wonderful, and different, night of music. So you can begin to see why it has been hard for me to find time to write.


    It was a nice easy morning on Saturday. We hung out a little while and then headed into town for a special program out at the Jackson Center again. This time it was a program put on by the local historical society on soapstone in the Floyd area. A nice slide show on local quarries in the area and how these deposits have been in use for thousands of years. First by indigenous local people and then by settlers as they came into the area. The speaker even showed some of the buildings, fireplaces and headstones that have been made out of the material over the years, including two, two story buildings in downtown Floyd that are built out of sawed bricks of the stone. After listening to the presentation we both realized we were really hungry, You must all think we do nothing but eat, but we do, so we headed for the town of Rinear since I had a craving for a buffalo brisket quesadilla at the buffalo store there. Home grown buffalo brisket with grilled onions and mushrooms, a bit of salsa, a little sour cream, and bottles of homemade BBQ sauce. Also very yummy! Coming back to 'the farm', we pretty much just hung out for the rest of the day.
    Sunday started out as a pretty slow and easy morning until Rima called me from outside. She was out with the horses, she has two, and wanted to know if I could come out and help her as she had to call the Vet because one was laying down and appeared to be sick. Bolivar was up and walking around by the time the Vet arrived, but you could see he wasn't feeling too well. Once the Vet showed up she listened to his heart and gut, looked him over, and determined that he probably had a case of 'worms'. She came prepared though, so while I held on to his and Fuzzy's head, she went ahead and dosed them both with what is apparently a really foul tasting medication that she injects in the side of their mouths with this big old plastic syringe. It appeared to work though, as they both seemed to be feeling much better by late that afternoon.
     For the two of us we headed out for a hike over at the Cascade Falls west of Blacksburg. A very nice 4 mile round trip walk along Stone Creek to a beautiful 55' high waterfall. The creek reminded me a lot of creeks in Colorado that I have spent many days fishing in with my  Dad and other family members. As beautiful as the pools were though, I didn't see a single fish the whole time, even little bitty ones. Not sure what that is all about, as it should of had hundreds, if not thousands, of fish in it.
   Coming back we stopped and had a meal at a little Greek/Mediterranean restaurant in Blacksburg. I had a Gyros sandwich, which was very tasty, and Rima had  some pork bits with pita bread and Greek sauce, also very good.
   As I said, both horses seemed to be feeling better when we got back that afternoon. Then, as there was an hour or so of daylight left.... thank you Daylight Savings Time, I went out and started pruning up the other apple tree Rima has that  has been growing wild. I got a good start on it before it got to dark to see anymore.  That night we actually broke out a jigsaw puzzle to put together. It was one that Rima and I had gotten at the Salvador Dali Museum when she was down in Florida with me. We had each purchased a puzzle with one of his paintings on it and we did a whole 500 piece puzzle that night, and I have to say that it was a challenge because half the piece shapes looked like they might have been designed by some 'warped' painters mind. But it was a lot of fun anyway.
     Monday finally dawned half ways decent weather wise. I made a trip into town that afternoon on a mission to pick up wooden fence posts for some fence repair work I planned on doing. It must be spring as I couldn't find much of anything in Home Depot, Lowes or Tractor Supply, as far as actual posts. So that was a total bust even though I did manage to get some much needed grocery shopping done. Not all was lost however as I did manage to find a whole stash of wooden fence posts at a little hardware store just outside of Floyd. I picked up a load of 10 8-footers and stuck them in the back of the truck until I could get them back to the farm and get them unloaded. Once done there I also managed to get the rest of the apple tree pruned up, and while it looks like a crazy man went at it with a hedge clipper, I think it will be much better off this year, and certainly by next year. Who knows, it may even have real apples on it at some point.
    Yesterday was an even nicer day outside. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit frustrating for me. I started out getting ready to go dig post holes. Gathering up tools, finding  the post hole digger, the first thing I did was throw one of the posts over the fence next to where it was going to be set. I then watched as it rolled down the hill for what seemed like a mile, probably only 500 feet or so. But it did mean trudging down the hill and carrying it back up again. There was also the lack of 'juice' in my cordless drill and no extra wire or tighteners. In the end I managed to get two posts set, another hole nearly dug and a spreader put in. It was not a great day for work, but in the end it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either. But it was fine when Rima came home before dark and gave me an excuse to quit a little early. We headed inside and cooked up some Chicken Fricassee over rice with some pan seared potatoes, all eaten outside on the deck overlooking the river. We even had enough light left when we finished that we actually went out and did a short walk up the road and back.
   So that brings us up to the current day which has turned off grey and rainy again. Tomorrow is suppose to bring on some more snow so I'm heading out to do some more shopping this afternoon.  So off to the big city.



   


























  
  













   

    Just realized that it has been several days since my last post, and for that I am sorry. On the other hand it has been a lot of fun.... and I'll actually talk about it in my next post. But right now I'm tired and ready to go get some sleep. Suffice it to say that my next post will note two different concerts, and wonderful talk on soap stone in the Floyd region, worming horses and a nice hike to some wonderful water falls. Until tomorrow.......

   Two days now since I last wrote and I apologize for the lapse, but it has been a very busy time for me. Tuesday was spent in driving from the Savannah area all the way up to my friend Rima's house near Floyd Virginia. The drive itself was pretty routine all in all. Drive a couple hours, stop for gas and a potty stop, drive another couple of hours, stop for gas, etc... do that a couple of times and you have soon driven nearly 500 miles and your whole body feels like it needs to be pummeled by large people in gym clothing. I made it into Floyd by 6:30 in the evening though, and it was good to finally step out of the truck. What I wasn't ready for though was the cold temperature and the snow on the ground. Guess I really should of put some pants and real shoes on before I got here.

   Met up with Rima at her office and we went over to one of our favorite restaurants, Natasha's. I had a wonderful hot and steamy bowl of Shepard's Pie, filled with lamb and fresh veggies, and covered with mashed potatoes.... it tasted great. Rima in the meantime had Natasha's chicken fricassee with her own mashed potatoes, gravy and candied carrots. We ate everything and then split a piece of homemade bourbon pecan pie with fresh whipped cream. What a nice way to come back to town.

    Yesterday was just a day to unpack and settle in for awhile. I backed Esmerelda back into her little spot and leveled her up. Got the clothes I needed packed up and moved into the house and then unpacked again. Also got a couple suitcases of clothing that Rima had left for me in Florida to bring up for her.She had left them with me so she didn't have to pay an extra $100 to fly them up with her. Also drained out the hot water heater in the trailer and made sure all the water lines were drained of water as much as I could get them.

    Even with all of that I still had time to go out and take a short walk up the road a mile or so. Came back and jumped into the upper pasture and walked the fence line up there checking out trees that will need to be cut out and the fence fixed. Also walked around the place a little bit just familiarizing myself with the area. Seems like pretty much everything is still the same so there will be plenty of fun projects for me to do..... just as soon as it warms up a bit more.

   It feels slightly colder here today so I'm taking my time in stirring outside. I will eventually make it outside, but not sure what, if anything, will get done today. But I do intend to be out walking if nothing else. Tonight we are heading into town for a concert at one of the local venues. Looking forward to enjoying some good music and some good company.

  So here are some more photos from my week on St Croix. All of these have to do with a sunset sail on the schooner Roseway, something I have done every year for the past couple of them. Enjoy!

St Croix Contra Dance Week - Feb. 2014

The wooden schooner Roseway. Originally built for the fishing trade off the Grand Banks, it was bought as a private yacht and then spent most of it's life in some kind of private enterprise. Found a few years ago in sad repair, and owned by a bank, it was purchased for the grand total of $10. Of course it then took another million and a half to refurbish her. Now used as a sea going school room, it spends the winter in St Croix and the summer in Boston taking kids out for 1-3 days of on board teaching.

One of the main anchors onboard.

A little fancy work to protect the deck from one of the main sheet blocks.

Everything on board is tidy and ship shape.

The fort of Christiansted as the sun is going down.

Looking towards the top of the main mast and all the stays, shrouds and halyards needed to make it all work.

One of many private sailboats moored in the harbor.

The sun is starting to go down as we head back towards the harbor. 

Looking towards the top of the main mast and all the stays, shrouds and halyards needed to make it all work.

Several of the band members and staff were on board also... and they even brought their instruments along with them. I have to say, not much is better than hearing sea shanties being sung on an actual sailboat.  

The sun is starting to go down as we head back towards the harbor. 

Really pleasant sailing. The wind was doing maybe 15-20 knots and the boat was sailing along at maybe 5-6. So nobody got sick this time around. 

This is my favorite in this group of pictures. I have no idea who this is, but this little kid was awfully cute.

Another piece of fancy work, this time under the main sheet block.

Looking aft towards the stern and the main sheet traveler.

The sea was pretty calm as we came back into the harbor.

Throwing lines with attached monkey fists. I haven't seen these used since getting out of the Coast Guard 35 years ago, but they actually use them every time they come back into dock to get the dock lines over to the dock.

The sunset was gearing up to be spectacular.

Time to drop the sails and put them up for the night.

Faking down the foresails.

Dropping the mainsail and faking it down on top of the boom. The crew are all made up of young 16-22 year old kids who come on board for a period of several months to several years. They not only run the boat, but also help out with the teaching when they  have students on board. They are all polite and happy and I am always impressed with how well they do their jobs.

A last look at the fort as we come back into the dock.

Back at the dock and all tied up for the night.

*

Tuesday.   ( So it appears like I put these photo's up and then forgot to write anything about the day... Of course they may not be such a bad thing, so I'm going to leave it pretty much alone and just say that whatever I was doing on this day it must of been pretty fun. Enjoy the pictures.)

St Croix Contra Dance Week - Feb. 2014

A short hike away from the resort brings you to a path up from the beach and into what was once Little Princess sugar plantation. These palm trees always tell you when you are near the entrance to the path. Otherwise you can bumble around for hours in the bushes trying to find a way out... or in. Not that I would ever do that of course. 

The side entrance to what use to be the plantation owners main house. Built on top of a hill to take advantage of the island breezes it has a wide roofed porch for shade and a very open floor plan inside.  

All over the island you see these structures popping up all over the place. Built on the tops of hills or in windy areas, these are the remains of the windmills that the plantations used to grind their sugar cane. I would really love to see one of these things rebuilt someday just to see how it all worked. 

At some point this building was put up and it became a hospital for hurt and injured slaves. It is now office space for the Nature Conservative which bought the place and are now starting to put it all back together. It's going to be a long, long time.

A short path leads through some of the old grounds where some of the old sugar mill and slave cabins once stood. Not much besides stones are left of most of the buildings, but the mill still has a few walls still standing. Here Rima stands next to some local trees. I can't remember what these are, ( oops, just remembered... they're fichus), but they are very destructive in that they grow up pretty tall and then use aerial roots to anchor themselves to the ground or anything else available. They then choke out anything else around them. 

Part of the old mill wall. I always like to come here and see if the wild bee hive is still going strong. You can see it near the end of the brick that sticks into the wooden lintel.

Another view of the base of the windmill.

Back at the resort this Christmas Tree Palm caught my eye. If you have to ask why it's called a Christmas Tree Palm you need to check out the colors of the seed pods in the following close up.

Christmas Tree Palm seed pods.

   Woke up to a very nice day here in the Savannah area. Had decided yesterday that it was smarter to stay here at least one extra day, rather than to get on the road today and find myself fighting snow and ice later on as I tried to make my way into the highlands of Virginia. Turns out that it was a good idea as that area, and everything east of there, have been hit by a big snow storm today. Of course now it is looking like there might be even more delay, as it was raining and blowing like crazy right outside of where I am sitting just a little while ago. I guess it will be a matter of getting up early tomorrow morning and deciding what to do.




   As for today though; it was very nice here for most of the day. Sunny and warm this morning with the temperature climbing into the high 70's. It began to cloud up this afternoon, though it remained warm, until about 6:00 when it started raining. Right now it has stopped and I'm not sure it is done yet as I haven't seen a weather report for some time now. But it was quite nice while the warmth lasted, so I headed over to the Georgia Railroad museum and spent several hours wandering around all the exhibits there. Lot's of interesting engines, cars and other equipment to look at. The museum is located in the old Southern Railroad Yard and Roundhouse. Of course the roundhouse, and adjacent shops, were a great exhibit all on their own, but there is still plenty of work they need to do to make it into a first class museum. Still, it is still really worth going to see right now if you like trains at all.




   Other than doing that for most of the afternoon there hasn't been a lot else going on for me today. I did finish up another book a little while ago. So I guess I'll be needing to find another one to read soon. But right now I'm just going to finish up here and then go and find some peanut butter since I ran out of that this morning. Below you will find the second sample of pictures I took while down in the Caribbean a couple weeks ago. I kind of wish I was back there right now laying on a beach.

St Croix Contra Dance Week - Feb. 2014

Rima and I decided to take one tour while on the island and the one we picked visited a few of the local island tourist places including this spot, the local botanical gardens. At the entrance is one of the old plantation buildings still left on the island from when nearly all the land on the island was planted with sugar cane.

I like old buildings... they look neat.

Our tour guide said this fruit was known as 'Starvation Fruit', because it is evidently edible, but really tastes awful. It does look neat though. I didn't taste it.

The interesting thing about these seed pods, which I can't remember the name of, is that they are used to provide the color in many of the commercial food products you buy and consume. The main one that comes to mind is Doritos.

Rima found a nice bench to sit on while we waited for some of the others on the tour.

Isn't this cute.... It's the start of a pineapple.

A closer view of the pineapple plant. I remember that pineapples are some type of plant that is a bunch of separate fruit pieces (drups ?), that join together into one large fruit as it grows larger. Here you can see all the individual pieces before they join together.

A little green anole sitting on a kapok tree root.

One of the biggest century plants I've ever seen.

What was once the slave overseer's house on the sugar plantation.

Inside what remains of the building. A batch of local Mexican Fruit Bats use the roof as their roost. These bats don't actually eat the fruit, but rather the nectar of the flowers, thereby pollinating the flower.

 A closer view of the fruit bats.

One of the other stops on the tour was the Cruzan Rum Factory. Here is a view of one of the warehouses were they stored some of the brew. All that rum.... so little time.

So there is a bar up in the rain forest where they have a couple of pigs that will take a can of beer, O'Doul's, out of your hand, open it up, by crushing it, and then drinking it all up. This is one of those pigs.

Another one of those flowers I don't know the name of.

It was evidently Cindy's birthday on this day, so her and a couple friends were helping to celebrate it with lunch and drinks out. Note the magic wands that just make any meal better. (In the photo, L to R, Brenda, Cindy, Charlotte and Karen).