Blend in.....

I finally talked Chuck into buying a pair of " regular overalls". ...lol. Actually I told him that we all need to wear them to plant the garden when Shell and Genavive come up this Spring. ( we found Genavive a pair also) I think he's going to find that he likes wearing them and will blend right in with all the " farmers" up here. You can't go anywhere without seeing men in overalls. I just love it! It reminds me of my grandfather that farmed in Illinois when I was little. He lived in overalls.

MUD!

This is what Chuck's boots look like most of the time. They are really black! His clothes match his boots....covered in mud so he takes them off on the porch and hangs them over the railing until it's time to go back to the barn and work in the mud again. As much as he has worked, we still can't walk down the drive ways to the mail box. We go through the center of the land by the garden and then across the front. I have stopped dreaming of having running water ( for now) It's not going to happen for awhile. It's suppose to rain but two days this coming week. We need a whole week of no rain for it to dry out enough for Chuck to use the trencher. When we watch the "weather report" every night on TV....we just laugh.

Some place new....

Every once in awhile, we just need to get away from the " mud" so we try and go to some place "new". This week, we went to Athens. What a nice little town! It has the courthouse in the middle of the square with all the stores outlining the square. All the stores, are still open for business so that makes it fun. One of them was " White's Hardware". It's been there since 1912. It has all kinds of " olden" neat stuff in it. I think we must have spent almost an hour in there, being entertained. We bought a really nice rain gauge to measure ALL our rain we are getting. Chuck bought some hookie things that go on the end of chain to pull stuff out of the mud and I found this big acorn cookie cutter. There was a doorway leading to the next store and it was a restaurant that served down home cooking. That's were we had lunch. Afterwards we went into the old Drug Store and several of the other stores. We headed back home, feeling like we had a fun day and really liking the little town of Athens.

Rain, Rain, Rain...Mud, Mud, Mud...

This is why we can't drive down our drive ways, trench for water pipes or have gravel delivered. RAIN equals MUD! and lots of it. It's very unusual that it has rained so much this winter, up here. Spring is when we are suppose to get our rain. Oh great! huh? ...lol. Spring will be right around the corner ..Sounds like this isn't ever going to end. I just keep telling myself, it has too one day. I would rather be up here dealing with the rain, mud, no running water, no toilet and walking from the neighbors with groceries and laundry than being in Florida, trying to sell a house. I wouldn't wish "selling a house" on anyone. Sure glad that part of my life is over. :-)..

Alabama snowmen

I got busy one morning and whipped up some " royal icing" and set out to decorate some white chocolate dipped Oreo's that we had bought at Walmart at Christmas time. I was very pleased on how they turned out. I was able to do it without making a big mess which is a "BIG THING" when you don't have running water to clean up with.

The Forest in the Winter.

Right after our last " cold spell" we went to town for something and when we were done, Chuck decided we should take a drive through the forest. We didn't have our usual hiking gear with us so we couldn't go very far from the road. ( we decided to always keep a back pack and some of our gear in the explorer now) It was just beautiful as always but even more so with all the frozen ice hanging from the rocks. We are so lucky to live up here and have this wonderful forest in our back yard....well, just down the road any ways. Winter isn't over by all means so I'm sure we will have more fun times seeing it in all it's glory, in the next couple of months.

The Birthday Hats!

" Happy Birthday" to Chuck! Chuck wore many different hats today to celebrate his 60th birthday. After breakfast, he opened his presents and the one from Shell contained two hats that she has knitted him. A bright orange one to wear in the forest during " hunting season" and a camo one to wear around the land to keep his head and ears warm.

The BNOE took us to dinner at their friends Mexican Restaurant. Lots of really good food....so much of it, we brought half of it home with us. They surprised Chuck with a sombrero
to wear while they sang " Happy Birthday" in Spanish and he ate " fried ice cream". Of course everyone had to have their picture taken in the sombrero afterwards. The BNOE even had a nice birthday present for him when we got home and had coffee. What a nice Birthday, Chuck had.

It's Official!

We are now "official Alabamians!". We both have Alabama driver licences and the explorer has a " Sweet Home Alabama" licence tag. It took us four trips to the courthouse to get it all done but we had some laughs out of it all. We also became friends with the little old man guard in the lobby of the courthouse. There is an X ray machine at the front door, along with a sign on the door saying you can't bring knives or guns into the courthouse. The first time we went, Chuck went back to the car to put his knives that he carries in his pockets away. Well, no one ever checked his pockets nor, did I ever have to put my purse through the machine. By fourth trip, the little old man guard wasn't even in the lobby to greet us. When I got my drivers licence, the patrolman was not very ....should I say " friendly". In fact, he was down right grumpy. When I came out of the room, I told Chuck that I had met my first " mean Alabamian. Now, that's still pretty good, with all the people we have met or talked too up here, there has only been one grumpy one. Now, people will stop saying " man! that is your driver licence number?.....that LONG number?. Alabama numbers are only 7 numbers long.

Fixed the steps....

Chuck kept telling me to be careful when I went down the steps because of the ice. Well, one morning, he came in and said he slipped and slid all the way down to the ground. The next day, we went to Home Depot and bought sand tape to put on the steps. The snow today, was the test.....they passed...no more slippery steps.

more snow

Our little Christmas tree got a good dusting of snow. Now, we have to prepare for the really " cold " weather......6 degrees on Sat night. It was only 14 degrees last night. Sad news to report...when Chuck and I went down to the barn this morning, all of the plants that we brought from Florida, were brown mush! It got below freezing inside the barn. I think the stag horns will come back but it will take years. Chuck made a tent out of plastic around the plants and hung a light bulb in the middle of it for warmth. I wish we had done that last night. I think it's too late for the rest of the plants. ...yes, I cried when I saw all my pretty plants....brown and drooping.

Snow Day...

It started snowing around 7:00 this morning. It was a really dry snow so it didn't stick to anything but collected on the ground. Around noon, it warmed up a little so the snow turned wet and started to stay in the trees. It was so pretty. I just kept walking around the TT, looking out the windows, watching it. It was so nice, sitting at the table, eating lunch and looking out into the woods with the snow coming down. It made the walk to the mail box special.....as it crunched under your feet.

Cold and getting colder....

That is ICE on the INSIDE of the kitchen window of the TT this morning. The rest of the rooms were warm because of our heaters. It has only been above freezing for two hours for over a week now. We have learned to dress in layers and have bought clothes that the locals wear to keep warm. Yep, that's my
"farmer Chuck" in his quilted,lined overalls. He was getting layered up to go work in the barn and maybe trench for water this afternoon. After we put on about six layers and go outside to walk to the mail box, we say to each other...." it's really not so bad out here"...lol. Well, we will see if we are still saying that after this weekend. It's suppose to snow up to 3 inches, tomorrow and then on Sat and Sunday nights it's suppose to be 6 degrees! burrrrrrr.

Don't ever take it for granted

After two months of having to buy ice every third day for two coolers and having floating food to deal with, we FINALLY have a refrigerator. Next to having power, this is the best thing that we could have at this time in our lives. It still surprises me when I get up in the morning and go to get the coffee creamer out of the cooler and there is a refrigerator standing there. ...lol. I LOVE IT! Now we can go back to going to the grocery store once a week instead of every three days because the meat would spoil in the coolers after that. We laughed because now we have to get to used to taking something out to thaw for dinner now. I cleaned the oven that I was afraid to even open, yesterday and I even baked us some " apple crisp" in it last night. Oh! it was soooo good. We both said, it tasted like something that someone would make up here. Life is so different here......and we are loving it.

Garden Lean to

We bought the other two pieces of lattice work for the garden lean to the last trip we made to Home Depot. Chuck carried them down to the garden...which wasn't easy since it's in the middle of the land. He nailed them up and then used his battery operated saw to cut them. He's going to build me a little work bench for the inside, next. It will all be ready for our Spring planting of our gardens. It will be here before we know it.

Animals of Alabama

We were driving home from town the other day and when we passed the big lake on the Beltline, we saw all of the Canadian Geese that usually make the lake their winter home there. They were all out "sunning themselves" but as I tried to get close to them to take pictures, they all waddled back into the water. Chuck is always taking a new road home to see where it comes out and this time we took " Mud Tavern Road". A new friend of ours, lives on this road and we wanted to see if we could find his house. ( we did) It's a beautiful drive over looking valleys and a winding road with lots of gorgeous houses on it. We pasted this one pasture and I told Chuck it looked like emus where out there. He turned the explorer around and we went back to get a closer look. Come to find out, they were llamas. When I got out and walked up to the fence, they started to come see who I was and if I had anything good to eat. They were so cute! They also had donkeys in the field with them. Ya just never know what you are going to see when you set out for a drive around here. Charlotte says that llama poop is the best thing ever for your garden so we are going to go visit the man that owns the llamas on Mud Tavern road and see if he wants us to scoop llama poop for him...lol. This will be another adventure and post on the blog come Spring.

Frozen muddy drive ways.......

These pictures were taken a few days ago. Any water that is standing in the drive ways now, is frozen almost solid. We might take an advantage of the freezing weather and drive the explorer on the land again. Don't think there is a chance of it thawing out any time soon. Suppose to be 6 degrees at night this weekend. Never been in that cold of weather before....so will be another "first" for us. Thank goodness we have power for all of this. Just hope we don't lose it....lol. We decided we would fair better than most folks up here if everyone loses power.....at least we have had plenty of experience without it. Would just take a couple trips to the barn and we would be all set up again. Keeping our cold fingers crossed that we don't have to make those trips to the barn.

Trenching for water

Now that the power is in and we are living a completely different life, it's time to work on the water. Our drive ways are so messed up from them digging a four foot trench down the middle of them, we can't use them since all the rain has turned them to mud! Chuck could use the tractor on them for a couple of days but now the ground is frozen and the mud is like cement. Jason brought out a hand held trencher and they have started the long 12 hundred foot trench for the water pipes. They have worked 1 1/2 days at it and still have another day of work before we will have water to the TT, the barn and the garden area. We " might" have running water in a week or so. Depends on the weather. ...which is fore casted " colder than it has been since 1940".........I'm beginning to think " winter" was NOT the best time to move up here. .....lol.... I'd still do it all over again....just to be here.