The comforts of home.

We don't have any water or electricity on the land yet, so for nine years we have been going up there and roughing it. It's not as bad as people think. We have lanterns and candles for light. The BNOE (best neighbors on earth) lets us fill up gallon jugs of water from their house, so we can wash dishes ( that we heat up on the camp stove ) along with what ever else we need water for. We buy ice for the cooler every other day. We are welcome to take showers at the BNOE house any time we feel the need. We have all the comforts of home with just buying a ton of batteries. I have a radio/CD player, a fan and even a little TV. In the winter, we have a propane heater that Chuck starts in the morning when he gets up to make the coffee and it warms up the kitchen a whole 10 degrees, which is a lot when there is ice on the inside of the windows of the TT.....brrrrrr! The propane camp stove lets us cook just about anything we want. We spend most of our evenings out on the front porch, talking and watching the fire flies in the summer. In the winter, we just go to bed early, at least Chuck does. I watch my little TV and write in my journal before going to sleep. In the Summer, we sleep with all the windows open and even have to cover up. The way summer is suppose to be. Of course in the winter, we sleep in sweats, in sleeping bags on top of the bed and covered with a couple quilts. Toasty warm until you have to get up and go to the bathroom. Now, that is another story...ha. Yes, we do have a porta potty in the bathroom of the TT but unless it's in the middle of the night, we take advantage of just squatting some place outside where you feel like it. The perks of owning 22 acres. :-) Then, there is the shovel with the roll of toilet paper on the handle to take care of the other. We are used to doing things in the dark, like Chuck putting our white rockers for the front porch, together. Every once in awhile you walk into the TT in the dark , flip the light switch and then laugh at yourself. We will continue "roughing" it until we actually move to the land. Then, Chuck will rent a trencher and bury the pipes to the electricity and water down the middle of our drive ways so we won't have to have big poles running through the middle of our land. Some day, the light switches and water faucets will work.

Donuts!!!!!

I think we have just about every brochure that has anything to do with anything around our land, driving to our land or about places we want to visit in Alabama. Believe me, we have a whole drawer full of them. They are fun to get out and look through and dream about when we are living up there and can experience some of these places. The " 100 dishes to eat in Alabama before you die" is listed by cities. Every time we drive through Dothan, we pass one of the places on the list. " Loyless Donuts"! Since donuts are my most favorite things in the world to eat,(Shell is suppose to serve them at my wake) of course I want the best. No matter what time we drive through Dothan, Loyless is never open. We thought maybe they went out of business. The last time we stopped at the Alabama welcome center at the state line, we asked the nice receptionist about Loyless. She told us that Mr. Loyless gets up at 4:00 am and makes a certain amount of donuts and when they are gone, he closes the shop. With this being the case, we are never going to get any donuts on the way to the land. BUT....we always spend the weekend with Gene and George on the way home and they live two hours from Dothan. So, this last time we got up really early (even told Gene and George good bye the night before) and left by 5:00 am to get to Loyless by 7:00. Surely we would be there in time to get a couple of donuts. We pull up and Loyless is STILL closed! They were on vacation that week. One of these days, I WILL get my Loyless donuts....if it's the last thing I do before I die.

Peanuts of Dothan

Dothan, Alabama is the" peanut capital of the world". As you drive down 231 in Dothan, you begin to notice these "peanut people" here and there in front of different business's . We would ... ahhhh..and ohhhh over each one we saw. They were so cute, we decided to stop at each one and take a picture of them. When we came upon the " Welcoming Center" there was a big golden peanut outside. We decided to go inside and see what information we could get on Alabama. The receptionist was very nice and we told her how much fun we had taking the pictures of " all " the peanuts. She said " WOW! you took all 51 pictures?" We laughed and laughed....51???? We only took 10! She gave us a map and the list of all 51 peanuts. I don't think we will ever get all 51 pictures taken but ya never know. It's on our " Alabama Bucket List".

Construction Road

As you turn off the road on to the land, you are on the straight drive way that Chuck cut the first time with the hand bush hog. It will take you all the way back to the barn. (about 1/4 mile) There is another very curvy drive way several feet before you get to the barn and it will take you to the house site and the TT. I keep telling Chuck we will have a hard time using this drive once we are 80 and drive like "old farts"....lol. (believe me, I know how they drive, living here in Florida. lol) It is such a pretty drive....all canopied, with solid woods on both sides. When it comes time to build the house, all the construction trucks will not be able to get down this drive way so Chuck started in, clearing another straight drive way from the barn to the house site. It's about 300 feet long. A lot of trees to cut down! I love the sound of the chain saw buzzing away. It's when it stops, I get worried and go check on Chuck. (he is very accident prone....and I'm not kidding.....he always has blood on him somewhere when he's working on the land) So, now we have three roads on the land. " Barn Blvd", "Brambly Lane" and " Construction Rd". It's so much fun owning all this land and being able to name your own roads... :-)

Lots of goats.....

Our neighbor's next to us, own Bush Hog, the goat. The people who live across the street from them have several acres also. They raise goats and cows. It's so much fun to go over there and feed all the goats bread. The babies are the cutest little " kids" ever! They like to climb on top of some old tree stumps that Billy has out there for them to play on. A year ago when Chuck and I were up there, we watched "twins " being born in the field. Sadly to say, one of the twins died the next day. Billy always has a new batch of goats to entertain us when we go over to visit. This Spring, he sent us home with lots of goodies from his garden. ...Plums, cabbage, banana peppers and corn on the cob. I would have to say, "Alabamians" sure are "sharing people".

Alabama Gourds....

There are several events through out the year that will keep Chuck and I

busy attending. This one is held in the fall in a little town about 30 mins from our land. It cost us a whole $2 each to get in. There were lots of gourds for sale in all shapes and sizes. I bought some that were shaped like pears and a big apple. Those were fun to paint. The artistry of painting on gourds just amazes me. I took lots of pictures of the art but I'm posting the one of the cat because it looks like our Annabelle. We also bought a mixture of gourd seeds and last spring, we planted some in the garden. Our neighbor has told me that there will be gourds waiting for us at Thanksgiving. I hope they will be big enough to make into bird houses. Another "up north" ( I know, I know...Alabama is considered the "south" but not to someone who has lived in Florida her whole life) experience to be had.

Picken on the halves.......

We were at the land a year ago last month and on our way down to spend the weekend with Gene and George before coming back to Florida, we saw an apple orchard sign, pointing down this little country road. I had never seen apples growing on a tree before. Hey, I've lived in Florida all my life and we only have oranges, grapefruit and other citrus in hot Florida. We came upon this little produce stand, selling apples and other end of the summer produce. The owner was like most of the Alabamian's we have come across....our new best friend. After talking for several minutes and eating some of his homemade ice cream that he makes from the fruits that he grows, I asked him if there was some way we could pick a basket of apples ourselves, since I had never seen apples on a tree. He laughed and pointed us to this little apple orchard a hop, skip and a jump down the road. We had the best time picking, and tasting the apples. We picked a box full. After thanking the man and finding out that in the spring, he has blackberries, blueberries and peaches in his orchards, we headed to Gene and George's. When we got back to Florida, I made apple sauce out of half of the apples and it was the best apple sauce we have ever eaten.

This last Spring we were headed home from the land and saw the sign for "Peaches" at the little produce stand. This time the wife was running the stand. We told her about our apple experience and what fun we had. She asked us if we wanted to "pick on the halves"? Chuck and I looked at each other and both thought..." must be another Alabamian thing"...lol. Come to find out, if we picked a quart of blackberries for ourselves and then picked a quart for the produce stand to sell, we got our quart free. That day we picked four quarts of blackberries and two quarts of blueberries and came home with three quarts of free berries. We are hoping when we move to the land, that we can " pick on the halves "every season. Yes, we have all the blackberries we can eat, growing on the land but these at the produce stand are hybrids and are much better for cobblers since they don't have as many seeds. The wild berries, I will use in jellies, jams and sauces. So, our new Alabama experience was " picken on the halves".

Giant Garlic

As I have said several times now....that we have the best neighbors on earth in Alabama. Every time we go up to the land, we are invited to their house for dinner the first night we get there. It sure is nice after driving all day and dead tired, to not even have to think about what we are going to do about dinner. We unlock the front gate, ewwww and ahhhh over how things have grown up since the last time we were up there and drive down the grass up to your knees, drive way, hoping not to see any trees fallen across our path. The tacky trailer sure is a sight for sore eyes. Nine times out of ten, the grass in front of the TT has been mowed, all the way to the neighbors. Usually there are some kind of flowers in a mason jar or vase sitting on the picnic table in front of the TT. Two years ago, the bouquet was huge round balls of little flowers.....the blossoms from giant garlic. Yes, they smelled like garlic but not overwhelmingly so. The blossoms dry and last forever. I still have them in the TT. You should see the size of the garlic bulbs. They are the size of your fist. I can't wait to try growing some of my own. It's a good thing we have acres of land.....cause I'm going to want to grow everything. ha.