December 24, 2017

     Okay, it has been a while since my last update.  Let me start with the cataract surgery.  Due to a cornea issue my vision is not any better and maybe worse than it was before the surgery.  I knew that was a possibility before the surgery though and at some point I may have to have cornea surgery.  We did the baddest eye first and I have decided not to have the other eye done.  Enough of the bad and on to the fun stuff.  After a trip to Virginia, for Kinsley and Cooper's birthday, we traveled with our camper.  We stayed at Cloudland Canyon State Park in north Georgia.  Jason, Shelley, and their two dogs joined us for a weekend.  We had a great time hiking and spending time with them.  The camper was a little crowded with 4 of us and 3 dogs, but we still had a great time.  The park is located just south of Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain.  We hiked the West Rim Trail, which overlooked the canyon.  Beautiful views.  I took some pictures with my gopro camera, but the day was overcast and they were not that great.  Here is one anyway.

     And a couple more.

     When we left there Amy and I spent a couple of days at Desota State Park.  I believe that is my favorite place to camp.  Great pull through sites for the camper and lots of trails to hike.  We started out headed to a waterfall and ended up with a 5 mile hike.  We are planning another trip to Virginia after Christmas and then back to Desota State Park for another weekend with Jason and Shelley and their dogs. 

     We thought we would be spending Christmas by ourselves since our girls came here for Christmas last year.  We tried to get reservations at the beach, but that didn't work out.  Jason and Shelley will be here Christmas Eve so at least we will get to see them.

     I have picked up a part-time job.  I have decided to help with trail maintenance on the Pinhoti Trail.  I've enjoyed hiking parts of the trail so I have decided to volunteer to help keep the trail hike-a-ble.  The Pinhoti Trail extends from Weogufka, AL to connect with the AT at Springer Mountain, GA., roughly 360 miles.  So far I have worked on three different sections.  One of the people I've worked with is my age and is re-blazing the trail.  We both went to Auburn and lived next door to each other but didn't know each other then.  I worked at Klinners washing dishes three times a day for my meals, and he lived there at Klinners.  It is truly a small world.  This last section we worked was on the north end about a hour and a half drive from my house.  We went in 2.5 miles then back out.  Most of the work is done with loppers, a swing blade, or chainsaw.  Last week we had a snow storm with about 8 inches at my house.  This caused small trees to bend over the trail and some trees came down over the trail.  We cleared these in that section.  One thing I have noticed.  After a day of working, it takes me about two days to recover from it.  My body just doesn't bounce back like it used to.  Thank goodness for arthritis strength Tylenol.  Even through the pain, it is still fun to get out and work on the trail. I hope to work one day after Christmas before heading to Virginia.

Until next time...I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

October 10, 2017

     Time flies when you are having fun.  It is hard to believe that it has been 2 months since my last post.  So much has happened since then.  Amy flew to San Antonio to help with Maddox, leaving Max and me at home.  She got home a couple of days before we left for a cruise up the east coast.  This was a great trip with our good friends Mary Jane and Chuck Wood.  We flew to New York and spent a couple of nights and days sightseeing.  We did a hop on/off tour bus trip around the city.  We visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Before boarding the cruise ship we had time to hike through Central Park. 
     We were supposed to be transported to the ship at 12:00, but due to the traffic problems it was after 3:00 before a bus could get to the hotel to pick us up.  Apparently President Trump was in town speaking at the United Nations and all the roads were blocked off.  We arrived on Friday and noticed that New York's finest were on every corner.  We even asked one of them where he would recommend us eating.  The place he suggested was right there on the corner, the name of the place was Astro.  Good food and very reasonably priced.  When we finally did get to the ship there was no line waiting to board, just us.  By the time we got to our room we had missed the muster drill.  And the ship was ready to sail.  On board we ran into two people from Talladega who we knew.  We did not see them again until the last day of the trip.  The ship was huge.  About 3500 passengers and 1500 crew.  The Crown Princess, ironically the same ship we were on last year on our Alaska cruise.
     Sailing from the dock in Brooklyn, our first stop was Newport, Rhode Island.  Since there was no dock for the ship it anchored off shore and we were transported to shore in one of the lifeboats.  We then took a walking tour of Newport.  The next stop was Boston.  Here we took a hop on/off bus tour, but the driver was so interesting giving us all the history of the places we were seeing that we decided not to get off at all.  Really enjoyed seeing and listening to our tour guide.  Our next stop was suppose to be Bar Harbor, Maine, but thanks to the hurricane there were 6 to 10 meter waves and 40 knot winds.  The captain ruled that it would not be safe to go ashore in the small shuttles so we instead headed to our next stop, Saint Johns, New Brunswick (Canada).  The final port was Halifax, Nova Scotia.  To me this was one of the best stops.  We walked to several places around town including a church and the Citadel.  Learned so much about the disasters of the Titanic and the ammunition ship that almost destroyed Halifax.  We have since bought several books to learn more.  This was a great cruise but the seas were rough.  Even on the large ship the rocking was so bad that I had to hold on to rails wherever I was walking around.  Amy got seasick on the last day because of the weather, but a dose of Dramamine fixed that.  We will begin planning our next cruise soon. 
     On Monday I had cataract surgery and we are heading to Desota State Park for a couple of days in the camper.  Looking forward to that.  Next month we are camping at Cloudland State Park with Jason and Shelley.  The four of us and 3 dogs in the camper should be fun.  Before that trip we will head back to Virginia for the grand kids birthday party.  I'll fill in all those blanks in my next post.

   

August 15, 2017

     Okay, it has been a couple of months since my last post so here is the latest update.  We have been traveling a little.  In my last post I mentioned that my wife was in Virginia and I bought a new truck.   In June, Max and I went to Virginia to help keep the grandchildren while my daughter was still working.  She teaches in one school system and her kids go to school in a different system.  The kids got out a week earlier than she, so I went up to help transport them to places they needed to go.  After spending a couple of weeks up there, Max and I took the scenic route home through the Shenandoah National Park on Skyline Drive. Roughly guessing it was about 120 miles at 35 mph.  Really beautiful with a lot of places to enjoy the views along the way.  The road crosses the Appalachian Trail several times.  At one of the last lookouts I encountered two thru hikers who were looking for a ride to the nearest town (Waynesboro, Va.) to restock on food.  Since Skyline Drive ends there, I was close enough to give them a ride.  My intent was to travel the Blue Ridge Parkway from start to finish.  It starts at the end of Skyline Drive.  After the slight detour to Waynesboro I returned back to continue my quest.  I was quite disappointed.  At each pull offs to look at the views, the grass was over 6 feet high and blocked the views.  That portion of the parkway was very curvy, which would not have been so bad if I could have seen more than tall grass along the way.  It did not take me too long to decide to travel the parkway another time so I found a way to get back to the interstate and came on home.  On the section of the parkway I did travel I did not see any other traffic, which would have been great but because of the curves the speed was only about 45 miles per hour.  My thinking was that at that speed it would take forever to travel the 400 miles of parkway.  So, that trip will have to wait till another time.
     We were home about a week before we headed to Texas for the birth of our latest grandson, Maddox.  Being retired is great since we are able to go an do things like that.  My wife is flying back out there next week to help out.  Max and I are staying home this time.  I don't think we were invited.  Max thinks he is a big dog (they have two labs) but has a problem of wanting to mark his territory, and I am too loud.  Maybe we will go on the next trip.
    Since I had bought the truck to pull my imaginary camper, we decided to get the camper.  We bought a Keystone Sprinter 29BH camper.  When I first pulled it home I was not sure where I was going to park it.  It is about 33 feet long, very spacious and will sleep a maximum of 9 people.  Of course that many people would have no where to move inside, but it is just right for my wife, me and Max.  We have already taken it camping in Cheaha State park.  Of course my daughter says it is not camping, but glamping.  And she is right.  All the comforts of home but enjoying the great outdoors.  Air conditioning, satellite TV, room to move around, as well as great outdoor space.  Cheaha was a good test since it is only about 20 miles from home and a narrow, curvy mountain road.  We spent a couple of very enjoyable nights and are already planning out next adventure.  I will post pictures next time.
     Of course I will have to say that my garden experiment worked like a charm.  More tomatoes than we have ever had, lots of peas and beans, cucumbers and squash.  I will do it again next year.  

June 14, 2017

I finally bought a truck.  After looking at all kinds I finally bought a Ford F150 Lariat and after saying over and over that I did not want a white truck, guess what I bought?  If you guessed white, you are right.  It is not just white it is whiter white. It is also powerful enough to pull my my imaginary boat and my imaginary trailer.  Hopefully I will have one of these soon.

My wife has been in Virginia since my last post.  She was helping to keep the new grandbaby while the mom went back to work.  She teaches in a school nearby but a 30 to 45 minute ride due to traffic.  The other 2 kids got out of school this past friday, but since Katy teaches in a different school system she had 2 more weeks to go.  I came up to help with the other two and brought Max with me.  I really had no idea how long I would be able to stay, since Max went wild when the newborn was first brought home from the hospital.  He was so wild that we left early to bring him back home.  This time Max is much better behaved, but gets upset if the baby is crying.  Seems to want to see that the baby is okay.  I will probably be here a couple of weeks and go home when Katy is out of school.  Amy is planning to stay another week to help out while Katy's husband is out of town.

I got started late with my garden this year and decided to try something different.  Maybe I should have done a little research on this before I tried it but...

So as you can see from the pictures above, I put down landscape fabric to keep the grass and weeds down.  Then used landscape timbers to keep the fabric down.  You can see that it is doing a great job, exactly like I thought it would.  The bottom picture shows a row of radishes covered up in grass.  We have had a lot of rain the past couple of weeks and there was no way to weed the garden.  The whole garden would look like this had I not experimented.  Once I put the fabric down I was wondering how I was going to plant the seeds.  Then I found out that there is a stand up planter that I could buy or make if I had the materials to build one.  I opted to just purchase it.  It is called Stand n Plant.  To say that I was a little skeptical would be an understatement,  You just jab it into the ground and pull the trigger as you lift it out of the ground and it is supposed to deposit the seed and cover it with dirt that falls in on top of it.  As you can see it worked much better than expected.  Of course I have not picked but 4 cucumbers and two tomatoes so far.  Maybe when I get home I'll have beans and peas ready.  Also, I started my tomato plants from seeds in February.  Those plants were about 4 ft high (top picture) when I left and had just started to bloom.  Should have lots to pick when I get home.  From the picture you may can see I tried something different for tomato cages.  My son told me about using concrete wire, an idea he got from WebCajun's youtube videos.  These heavy duty cages will not blow over in a storm as the other ones do.  A little more expensive, okay a lot more expensive, but they will last forever.  Every year I've had the flimsy cages blow over and the plants end up on the ground.  It will take a tornado to knock these cages over.  Well, we are now caught up with everything, so until next post....

May 30. 2017

     Wow!  I did not realize that time passes so fast it had been 2 months since my last post.  I will try to do better.  I have been a bachelor for most of the month.  Amy is in Virginia helping with the newest baby while Katy has gone back to work.  She will be there through next month since Katy's school doesn't end until the end of June.  I have had my hands full with keeping Max occupied.  He is so demanding and has gotten to be quite a lap dog.  Just like a baby he wants to be held or laying on me all the time and it is getting to be troublesome.  He completed his second round of obedience school, but still doesn't understand the word NO.  Max will not go out into the back yard unless I go out there with him.  Spoiled, definitely.  If it is raining outside, he will not go out.  You can guess what that means if he refuses to "go" outside, then he is going to "go" inside.  Maybe it is because he is still a puppy.  He is so attached to me that when I am in the pool on a raft, he will climb on it just to sit on top of me.  If I'm in the hammock, he will jump up there too.  We put in the fence so he could stay outside by himself, but that doesn't happen.  He has escaped under the fence twice.  The first time he was chasing a lizard, which he caught and ate.  He escaped the other day but when I realized he was not in the backyard I found him looking in the windows waiting to come back inside.
     For the past two weeks I have been volunteering at church.  I thought it would help improve the looks of things if I put my pressure washer to use and cleaned the concrete around the church.  So far I have only done about 1/3 of the total area.  Eventually I will get the whole job completed, but not sure how much longer it will take. I can work for 3 or 4 hours a couple of days, then I have to take several days off.  Thankfully we have been getting a lot of rain so I use it as an excuse not to get wet pressure washing.  Oh well, any excuse works for me.
      I have also been truck shopping.  Maybe I want too much, but I want to have something to pull the imaginary camper or the imaginary boat that I don't have.  Too many makes and models to choose from.  They all have one thing in common; a hefty price tag.  My old truck is almost an antique.  That was brought to my attention when a dealer was willing to take it off my hands for almost no trade in value.  I may find an organization to take it as a donation.  That way I would get more of a tax write off.  That has us almost caught up for now, so more to follow later.

March 22,2017

So, after the hike and freezing weather, the winter storm came on the 14th.  Katy and Scott headed to the hospital in Scott's 4 wheel drive truck.  Due to the snow traffic was minimal and they had no problems getting there.   This was the view of the back porch as the snow was coming down.

We had planned to take the kids to school and be at the hospital when the baby was born.  The storm changed those plans.  Schools were closed for two days because of the snow and ice.  Anyway we have a new grand baby born on March 14th.  We finally made it to the hospital on the 16th to see the baby.  The picture below of Sadie and proud parents was sent to us from the hospital
.

They brought the baby home on Friday and Max went crazy. He was such a problem barking and jumping and going zonkers that he had to be crated and confined to the basement.  As it turns out, this is an undesirable trait of most Yorkies as they may feel jealous of the newborn and do not realize that the baby is a person.  It will take time for him to get use to Sadie and for her to get use to him.  Until then he will not make the trips to Virginia.   We are planning to visit again in June or at least Amy is going to keep the baby when Katy goes back to work.

What a change from the cold in Virginia to the temperature in the high 70's of Alabama.  I have been out in the sun for the past two days and even waded in the pool, not really, but I did get my feet in the water.  I am planning another hike.  This one will be about 12 miles and I hope to complete it in one day, but I may have to rethink that plan.  That would be about twice the distance that I usually hike and along a trail that I have not hiked before.

March 3, 2017

     Okay, so it has been a while since my last post.   Let me try to catch up.  It seems like time has really gone by so quickly.  Just yesterday was Christmas but somehow January and February came and went and I sort of missed them.  During that time we did take Max to obedience school.  We were sure that he would flunk out since he is so hyper, but he passed and we have a certificate to prove it.  Of course he did try to eat the certificate.

     Although he passed, the trainer called and would like for us to repeat the course in April, at no cost, so we signed up for another 6 weeks.  Max did learn a few commands, like ready, sit, down, stay and heel.  It is hard for us to be consistent and train everyday.  

     One of the highlights of February was that we got to spend a day with some old friends, Paul and Harriett Lawrence.  They were missionaries to Gaza and are now retired and back home.  It was good to catch up with them.  Also, the weather warmed up with several days in the high 70's, and my thoughts turned to gardening.  I thought that I would try starting some plants from seeds, to transplant into the garden.   I usually just buy tomato plants to set out, but I was going to do something different this year.  My son does this every year and said it is cheaper.  He is set up to grow seedlings in his basement and has a lot of success.  But, for me, that did not work out too well.  I only had a couple of seeds sprout, so I decided to start over.  I have been getting my garden spot ready for planting though.  I am considering buying a small greenhouse so I would have a place to start my plants instead of putting them on the dining room table.

     I also have been hiking a little.  Went for a 7 mile hike on the Pinhoti Trail with a friend of mine, Larry Shirley.  We intend to hike some more soon.  We have made the trip to Virginia for the birth of our new granddaughter.  We came a few days early so I could hike with a group of men from the church my son-in-law, Scott, attends. We hiked a section of the AT from Keys Gap to Harper's Ferry. 

Of course the weather when we left Alabama was 70, but steadily dropped the further north we came.   A winter storm on Friday sent me looking for an insulating base layer, gloves and toboggan.  The temperature was 24 when we started out, but warmed up to 30 during the day.  The pictures below were taken from the hike yesterday.

This group picture was taken overlooking the bridge into Harper's Ferry which is the unofficial midpoint of the Appalachian Trail.

Of course I was bringing up the rear.  Do I look cold?

Break time about 4 miles in.

I can now say I hiked the AT in Georgia, Virginia, and West Virginia.

     All in all, I had a great time and met some good people.  I was glad they let me come along.  The whole hike was fairly easy and rocky.  After we hiked across the bridge then we traveled along the road back to the Harper's Ferry National Park Visitor Center.  The last climb up the mountain was a killer.  It seamed like about 1000 rock steps up to the top.  Each of those steps were about 18" high and that was a little high for an old fat guy, but I eventually made it to the top.  In all about 7 miles.  Maybe they will let me hike with them again.

     I have to add that the delivery date for the new baby is Tuesday morning, right in the middle of another winter storm.  The current prediction calls for up to 6 inches of snow.  Looks like Amy and I will be keeping the other grand children at the house if their schools close.