Place Watermelon Rinds here.......

I always pack a picnic lunch for us to eat on the road, on the way to the land. We have found the perfect place to stop to eat is at the " Alabama State Line Welcome Center. We usually get there around lunch time. ( Alabama time....we gain an hour) A couple of years ago, we noticed this sign above a slab of cement....saying " PLACE WATERMELON RINDS HERE. We never have figured out why or what it is used for. It just makes us laugh every time we see it. We always go in the center and talk to the nice receptionists, while we see if there are any new flyers out that we haven't already grabbed from our many stops before. Every time, we introduce ourselves as the people who are trying to move to northern Ala, from Florida. They are beginning to remember us. We decided that next time we stop, we're going to ask them about the Watermelon Rinds sign. ...and I'll let ya'll know what they have to say about it. By the way, we stopped in northern Florida and bought this HUGE watermelon and thought it would be funny to take it out of the explorer and take a picture of it under the funny sign.

Tall Grasses....

We knew the grass and weeds were going to be high....BUT! it was pretty bad! When we drove down the drive way through all the grass, and came to the TT, there was a bent over sweet gum tree blocking the porch steps. Chuck got the bow saw and cut it down so we could get to the door of the TT and unload the explorer. By the time we got everything unloaded, we had about an hour before it was time to go to the BNOE for dinner. ( they always have us over for dinner the first night we are on the land...we will be paying them back until the day we die) Chuck decided to get the tractor out and start bush hogging for the hour. What a difference mowing makes! After I spent the hour putting things away in the TT, I walked down the drive way to find Chuck and tell him it was time to leave. He got off the tractor and had his hand tucked up under his other arm pit. He had cut his hand really bad and was keeping it from bleeding . He tried to move a big branch from a tree out of the way of the tractor and his hand got between the cage of the tractor and the branch. The branch broke and it cut his hand on the fleshy part between his thumb and first finger. ...BAD! We do keep a first aid box with us at all times up there so he cleaned and dressed his hand at the BNOE house. I wanted to take him to the ER but..." nooooo...he would be fine". Of course this put a damper on everything that had to be done during the week. Every time Chuck would move his fingers or thumb, it would make the cut bleed. A couple days later, his hand swelled up twice the size it should have been. ( I tried to get him to go to the Dr again...but nope..he'd be fine) A couple of days of ice packs and benadryl took care of that. Down at the garden area, the grass was higher than Chuck. We couldn't even find the four fruit trees that we had planted in Feb. ...nor could we find the cement bench we had under a tree. We had a lot of work in front of us for the week, but work we had been looking forward too, just not with Chuck's cut hand.