The tree's are really starting to change colors and it won't be long and all the leaves will be off the trees's. We are having much cooler weather with daytime temps in the low 60's and nightime in the low 30's to low 40's. Tueday and Wednesday the high will be 71 but it could change. No more rain predicted. I just wish that the sun would shine so we could get more pictures of the leaves.

Kristy had a 7lb4oz baby girl born around 3:00am Sat. morning. Jynna her 11 year old called and left an message around 11:30 pm saying they were at the hospital. Guess Kristy was only in labor about 4 hours. The baby was due on Sunday. She was suppose to go home today. The hospitals don't keep them very long now a days. I am still busy sewing baby clothes mostly for sleeping. The girls got to stay in the birthday room and be part of everything. Times have changed.

We spent the morning trying to rearrange the livingroom. With an open floor plan and our big furniture its tuff. Will work on our bedroom tomorrow. Not a lot happening here right now so will sign off.

My Dog

This is Midnight, my dog. Never had a cat follow me around like this guy does. When I go hunting for arrow heads, he follows me out and back. He stays with me the whole way and when I sit down to rest along the way, he lays down next to me. He comes when I call and is a very affectionate cat. He's more like a dog than a cat.

Passing Clouds

The weather has really changed in the last two days. We have gone from unseasonably warm and dry to seasonally cool and wet as these photos show. Our noon time temp is 68 and its been raining off and on since about 4AM. The clouds are really low and moving across our mountain range. They're almost low enough to touch.

More and More Color Moving In

Felines Galore

Just a couple more of the eight cats we have roaming around. We kinda got adopted by an instant cat family that lived here before we did but we don't want to just abandon them to the elements, So we gots a few more now. The top left pic shows the three amigos and our original Florida cats. Lucky in the middle, with Patches at the top and Tommy the Tiger just below Lucky..
The next pic, on the left is of Bandit, who is very aptly named. If it's missing, broken, or moved Bandit dit it.

The Next pic is of one of our new kittens, Smokey. A very lively, shy but loveable 6 month old kitten. We have her uncle, Midnight, who is completely black around here along with Smokey's mom, Penny and Smokey's sister, Freckles. Can't find them right now but I'll get some pics of the later.

A REAL POUND PURRIE

Our oldest and favoritest cat is Lucky, or as our son, Stephen calls him, Little Man. Our dog found a very small kitten in our front yard and carried him to us in her mouth. Hence the name Lucky. Lucky weighs in around 18 lbs and spends most of his day sleeping on the foot of our bed usually with a few of our other felines.

The folliage is just starting to turn here on the mountain as you can see. It should get a lot more colorful in about a week, especially if the cooler weather continues.

Fall Changes

The fall colors are starting to set in here on the mountain. Farther down the mountain the colors are almost in full swing and are really pretty. Everything is getting ready for the colder weather and winter hibernation (Toad in top pic). We'll get some full folliage pics off the back porch as soon as the weather clears. It's overcast and raining right now and we really need the rain. Tennessee is about 16 inches behind the annual norm for this year. We're in a severe drought. We went to Muddy Pond today to do some seasonal shopping and visited a sorghum mill, where they process the cane into syrup. Will post some pics of that excursion as soon as we get them back. Like a dummy, I didn't take the digital camera so we have to wait for developing.

Cathy's Christmas Present

We been talking about trading in our 2003 heavy duty chevy diesal truck on something a bit smaller and hopefully more economical. Also we really don't need all that horsepower any longer for towing. So we swapped our 2003 truck for a new chevy crew cab 4x4 with a 4.8L v8. Except for the truck bed, which is only 5.5' long, we have more interior room and a smaller engine with better gas mileage, and gas is a little cheaper than diesel. This will also be better transportation if Kristy and the girls come up for a Christmas visit. Chuck and I will drive to Florida to bring them up here and take them back when the girls have their Christmas school vacation. We were able to get this truck for the same monthly payment that we had on the old 2003 diesel and when we transfer the loan back over to Navy Federal Credit Union, they will lower the interest 2 whole percentage points which will mean that our monthly payment will be considerably lower. Back in 2004 we bought a new chevy truck with GMAC just to get the $1,000 extra rebate, then transfered the loan to NFCU before we even made one payment. Then NFCU gave us $200 for transfering our loan to them.

We had started putting money into the 2003 truck and had just spent $415 on front end and brakes plus something else in the front end was going wrong. So we are glad not to have the expense anymore until the warranty is off on this one. Of course the resale or trade in is much better on diesel trucks than gas trucks. I guess we are always going to have a car payment!

We finally got the water balanced in the hot tub after having to put about 6 different chemicals in it. When we go to Cookville at the beginning of every month we will bring in a water sample for testing. It shouldn't get to bad as the cover is on all t he time unlike a pool and the maintenance and cleaner will be much easier than a pool. We had a pool for about 15 years and it just got to be to much work for us.

All the cats are well now so its time to take the 2 kittens in to be spade and get their rabies shots. I will have to call around and see who has funding to do the surgery for free.

Last week was our week to run around I am ready to just stay home and rest and read a good book or sew. I made some burp pads for the baby and will have to mail our a package this week. I also found 2 little pair of jeans for the baby in 12 month size. Kristy will be surprised. She got one of the packages I sent on Wed. with the receiving blankets and outfits but not the one with the 2 baby afgans and outfits. The girls are getting excited about a new sister now watch it be a boy! Sonograms have been known to be wrong!

Well its time to catch up on my housework can't put it off any longer. Cooler weather will be here on Thursday with a high of 74 degrees. Today feels a bit warm.