Wedding Photo Album

These are pics of the wedding photo album that we made for Lisa, Stephen's fiancee, for her wedding shower.  Even though Cathy wasn't able to be in Florida for the shower, we thought we'd give her something special so we're taking it to Fla with us when we go for the wedding.

Wedding's Coming Up

Well - Next Thursday we saddle up for the trip to Florida and Steve's wedding.  Gonna be a long drive but are looking forward to it.  Hopefully the weather will hold as we hate driving in the rain.  Love to sleep to the sound of rain and tend to get sleepy after awhile of driving in it.  Anyway, it's a 12 hour drive so expect to be there late Thursday evening.  Wedding is on Saturday and we leave for the return trip on Sunday.  Plan to spend an overnight south of Atlanta on the way back so we won't get so tired, so we should be back by early afternoon on Monday.  When we get back, will have to schedule Cathy's hip replacement surgery in Cookeville.  Not looking forward to it but hopefully it will eliminate another source of pain that she has.  I'm really hoping we can get back into walking like we used to cause we both need the exercise.
     Tomorrow we gotta head for Ft. Campbell, Ky to do the shopping for our summer visitors.  We usually go there to buy our meat cause it's some of the best around and the price is less, plus we don't pay sales tax.  We buy in quantity so when we get home we separate it into smaller amounts and vacuum pack it so it'll last longer.  We just finished eating the last of what we packaged up last spring.  It's nice to be back on a military base.  Our overnight room is only about $45 which includes two dbl beds, mini kitchen with fridge, free breakfast, large screen cable tv etc.   It's a relaxing overnight for us, which we don't get to do too often.
      Before we head out for Florida, I hope to get a couple more fishing trips out on the Dale Hollow Lake.  That's another way we relax.  It's soooo peaceful and quiet out there, especially during the week days. 

Garden Time

Took Cathy to the Orthopedic surgeon last week to check on her hip and knee.  Not good news.  Seems her hip joint is deteriorating to the point where the actual joint is bone on bone.  No wonder she has trouble getting around.  It wasn't so much the knee as the hip.  Anyway, she's going to have hip replacement surgery when we get back from Florida.  The surgeon explained that they well replace the ball on top of the femur (looks like a ball joint on the tie rod end of a car).  They just cut off the top of the femur and drop this stainless steel joint into the top of the bone.  The ball sits on top a six inch shaft that fits into the femur.  When they put it all back together, the hip socket fits onto the ball joint and all the muscle holds it in place.  No screws needed and no rehab either.  Just recovery for healing from surgery.  He said she'll be up walking, with a walker, the first day.  Cathy ain't too good with surgery and definitely don't do very well with the pain.  So hope they got some good drugs for her.  Maybe when she gets healed up we can start walking again like we used to do a year ago.  We were both in better shape and need to get back to it.

Well we should have the ground plowed and topsoil on but the weather just isn't cooperating.  Joe came down last week to check on the status of the ground to see about plowing and we both agreed that it was still too wet.  Then, for the past couple of days, we've had more rain.  Just can't seem to find a dry period when it can be plowed.  Joes has his plowed but then he's higher up the mountain and it drains before mine.  In fact, his drains into mine and keeps it wet, at least for now.  Will just have to wait and hope the weather cooperates.  I want to at least get it plowed and prepped for planting before we leave for Steve's wedding in Florida, May 7th.

Stallion Attitude

I couldn't pass this up. My horse gets an attitude if I am late feeding him. He was really ticked yesterday when I fed him at 6 PM. We were late cause we were out on the lake most of the day. He picked up his feed pan and threw it toward me. Not sure if he intended to hit me or just get my attention. He does this all the time and no one except my wife believes me. Now I have pics of it. GOTCHA JIM!!!

First Trip on the Boat This Year

Thought it was time to change the lead picture of our house for warmer weather.

Today it was up to 88 in Byrdstown and about 80 on the Dale Hollow Lake. We spent about three hours tooling around, did a little fishing and some sightseeing. Had a pretty good wind out there and it kicked up quite a chop. We had to lower the Bimini cover to maintain speed as it was acting like a sail and slowing us way down. Didn't catch anything but had a real good strike on the Jitterbug lure. Will have to try that one again another day. Gonna put some of the pics on the blog that we took last year and will update with more from this year as we take them. These pics were taken from the State Park overlook in Kentucky. If you look at the last photo, following the lake to the left takes you into Wolf River which runs about 2 miles below our house. That would be about 17 miles following Wolf River. Looking at the 4th photo down - if you were to follow the water all the way to the top right then hook a left and go about 7 miles, it would take you by Star Point marina where we keep our boat. If you continued on down the lake instead of turning left, after 14 miles you would come to Dale Hollow Dam. This is a humongous lake and it's easy to get lost on, even with a map. Cel phones don't work well and all the marinas removed their UHF/VHF radios cause they don't work out there either. I'm hoping my GPS will work after I download the TOPO maps. Anyway, the top photo is what we saw as we returned to port near sunset. What a relaxing day.

Spring is supposed to be here

The wx guy says that spring has sprung but you sure can't tell by the weather. One day it's kinda warm with the sun shining and the next it's overcast, windy and cold with a dusting of snow. Whew! Anyway today it was warm when we started for Cookeville to get my hair done and do our monthly shopping. It's an hour drive so we make a day of it. Temp was 73 while we were in Cookeville but a storm front came thru and when we left it was 57. On our way up the mountain we saw lots and lots of wind damage, especially with trees down all over the place. As we were pulling into our driveway there was a tree that had fallen across the road that someone had sawed up so people could drive up the mountain. Chuck will have to finish cleaning it up tomorrow. Electricity was off when we got home. Our neighbor called to see if we had "juice" and to invite us up to his house until the power was restored. It had been off for about 3 hours. We lite our candles and lanterns and opened all the doors and waited until the power was back on. Surprisingly, they respond fairly fast for a mountain community. Gonna have Chuck put a more recent pic of our house showing the current season as the trees are just starting to leaf out and green up. It's pretty this time of year. Gotta run. Will write more later.