Hum - Is it Spring yet!!??!!

Here we go again.  It's 73 degrees out today but tomorrow we're getting a cold front moving in and temps are gonna drop to 17 with a prediction of snow flurries.  I was gonna put my long johns away for the summer but think I'll wait just a little longer.  The usual flurry of warm weather critters has started but boy are they in for a surprise.  Saw some wasps and carpenter bees around the front porch this morning.  Although not necessarily a warm weather critter - I found this little guy hanging around my back porch

Not really sure but I think it's a Brown Bat.  They're about the size of a mouse and native to Tennessee.  Talked to my friend Ken, who's a caver (spelunker) and he says that Tennessee is experiencing a disease called "White Nose Syndrome" in our bats.  I think it's fatal and we're losing a lot of the bats to it.  It's not just in Tennessee but apparently all along the eastern seaboard.   It's a fungus that grows around the bat's nose when they hibernate.  Researchers haven't been able to find a way to control it except to have cave explorers sanitize their clothing and equipment after leaving the cave.  Cute little guy and it would be a shame to lose an entire population or species of bats because of this.  I wish them luck in finding a control. 

What's That - Spring ya say???

Wow - Got up this morning and what a beautiful sunrise over the mountains.  Still looked cold out so I braced myself and headed out to feed the furry critters (cats) on the back porch.  Surprise of surprises - it was almost 50 degrees out there.  Thought I was gonna have a heat stroke before I could get back in the house.  Heh Heh!!  Really feels good and now I am really looking forward to some green foliage, blue skies and lake time...  Cathy made another special meal today.  Seems every meal she makes lately is special, at least they are to me cause I never had them before and I really liked them.  Today she made Shrimp salad with cilantro dressing.  Never been a fan of cilantro but there was just ever so slight a hint of it in this.

As you can see Romaine lettuce, avocado, red bell pepper, and frozen corn and peas topped with the cilantro dressing and all of 305 calories.  Of course the wine is extra.  I'm sure it topped off the salad perfectly.  Don't know for sure as this was Cathy's plate.  I had tea.  Cathy has been trying to lose weight for awhile and I really believe she has hit on some winners.  She found them in the magazine "Taste of Home" and they appear to be working.  She's is losing weight.  I'm proud of her and I have always enjoyed her cooking.  I can only remember one meal that was a real looser and it was made with hamburger helper back when we were first married.  Since then it's been an adventure for my taste buds and appetite.  Saw the neighbor plowing and disking his garden today.  Hadn't seen Joe in a couple of weeks so took the 4 wheeler up the road for a visit.  He always plants two gardens and I mean gardens.  They each measure about 40' x 40' and are quite a bit of work.  I gave up on my garden cause it got to be a real pain trying to water it every other day.  Somehow, Joe's property stays wet, probably cause of all the underground springs that come off the top of the mountain.  Anyway, I usually help him plant and till his in exchange for some of his produce - beans, tomatoes, corn, onions, turnip and mustard greens, winter cabbage etc.  He really plants a bunch of stuff.  Cathy plans on canning again this summer so it will come in handy.  We also go up to Monticello, Kentucky and purchase produce in bulk from some of the truck farmers and it's a lot cheaper than buying vegetables in the stores like Walmart.   Anywho - guess I shouldn't get too excited cause Wednesday of next week the temp drops back to the low 40's for the daily high and mid 20's for the low.  They even predicted some snow flurries for Wednesday night.  But there's light at the end of the tunnel, I know summer is coming.  Hurrah!!!

Dieting ain't half bad

Wow - Fantastic!!!  Cathy's been dieting lately and losing weight I might add.  Usually dieting causes lots of frustration with minimal weight loss but this seems to be different.  We used to walk the logging roads about 3 times a week but since she's had her hip and knee replacement, we've had to curtail those.  So - she began to gain weight without exercise.  Anyway - she started making meals based on calories and I'm impressed.  I'm usually a meat and taters kind of guy but she's got me rethinking my own eating habits.  She made me this for supper last night.....

It's called Crispy Asian Chicken Salad.  It's about 300 calories without the dressing and is it ever good.  I don't usually put salad dressing on my salads anyway.  After I had a bite I had to get a pic for the blog.  Normally, about 45 minutes after a meal like this, I'm roaming the kitchen looking for something to munch on but not this time.  I'm really impressed - finally something that's good for you and tastes good to boot.  Not a bad combination.  Love ya babe...

Brrrrrrrrrr!!! Winter hangin' on

Got up this morning to single digit temp and ice a hanging on just about everything in sight.  I counted about 25 Robins in the front yard.  They were all puffed up and just sitting there.  If they were waiting on me to bring breakfast they were gonna have a long wait.

When we went to bed it was raining but cold.  The ground was too warm for the snow to build up, it just melted.  So - the predicted 2" snowfall never materialized but the freezing rain did.  We're lucky the power lines are still up. 

I saw ice cycles on the high line wires almost 4" long.  I imagine those areas to our west got it worse than we did.  Same thing happened last year - last minute throes of winter.  About 3 years ago, Cathy and I were boating on the lake in March.  We had jackets on but it was no where near as cold as it is now.

Beautiful to look at from a distance but, as they say up in New England, it's wicked cold.  I guess I shouldn't complain too much.  When we were stationed in Misawa, Japan (81-84) we had a record accumulation of 127"  (10' 6") of snow.  It started snowing in October and our last flurry was in May.  Our winds came in off the Russian Siberians and boy was it cold.  You really had to bundle up when you went outside.  Once the snow started falling most people gave up driving their personal vehicles and took the military bus.  The last thing to melt off was the roadway, which had 6-8" of packed snow/ice.  We got used to it tho.  The base was kinda isolated so we wound up spending lots of time sledding on the ski slopes and drinking hot chocolate at the ski lodge.  Good ole days!!?

Cabin Fever

Was really hoping that winter was going away but I guess not.  Been cooped up in the house off and on for the past 3 weeks due to inclement weather and we are starting to get cabin fever.  Did go to Cookeville last week so that alleviated some of that closed-in feeling.  We have had a running battle, since late fall, with these critters.

The swarmed into our side of the mountain and what a mess.  They seem to find their way into the house no matter what you do.  By swarm I mean millions and millions of em.  When I go out to the barn to do some wood work, it's like walking on a carpet of dead ladybugs.  They literally cover the floor.  We had the house sprayed inside, which helped some but they just keep coming back.  As it warms up they're supposed to swarm again but this time going away.  Don't really care where they go so long as they go.  But - apparently they'll be back.  Seems they mark their territory so they know where to come back to and boy did they mark this area.  This is another example of man messing with nature.  These critters were apparently brought in in massive numbers to control some other critter.  Only now there's nothing to control the controller.  Anytime we mess with "Mother Nature" we never get it right.  I thought we could get the outside of the house sprayed to get rid of them but - nope.  The spray tends to wash off during heavy rains and if it's sprayed on heavy enough to stay - you're breaking the law.  It's a no win situation.  Nothing like sitting down to enjoy a nice bowl of chilly on a winters day only to have a couple of ladybugs fall into the soup.  I've gotten to where I just scoop them out and continue as if nothing had happened.  Who ya gonna call!!!!
 
One good thing about being cooped up is I get to make quite a bit of headway on my family tree.  I'm not sure how many names I've gotten so far but it's over 900.  I found a couple of books on the Internet that had a lot of my family history going back to England.  Then all I had to do was confirm their information by searching online databases like census, birth, death, and marriage records  as well as passenger ship manifests.  Also have Cathy's mother's side going back to the 1500's.  It's really exciting to uncover some of the history and then sometimes its not so exciting.  I just found out that on my father's side, we had ancestors who were pioneers into Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama before they were states.  Unfortunately, in the late 1700 - early 1800 era, they used slaves on large land holdings or plantations.   Several of these pioneers were slave owners.  Nothing to be proud of but it's part of the history.  Also had another of my ancestors who was basically shanghaied at 14 years of age and was forced to be a cabin boy on a sailing ship that took to pirating off the coast of Africa in the south Atlantic and Indian ocean areas.  Luckily he and a couple other young sailors made a break for it when the ship pulled into the Bahamas.  The story actually comes from a deposition made on May 28, 1698 by John Elston to a court in New Jersey when he was 20 years old.  It was found during research of New Jersey Colonial Documents.  Interesting stuff and a good way to occupy oneself during self-imposed winter incarceration.  Til Next time  - ta ta

Freaky Weather

Man - this weather lately is getting weird.  It's extremely cold and snowy one day and sunny in the 60's the next.  Seems it's not just here but all over the nation.  Anywho - we have been spending a lot of time indoors and started getting cabin fever.  So, Cathy's way of breaking the monotony is to cook.  I have to say I'm the benefactor of this and since I really enjoy eating, I don't go wanting much.  Yesterday she decided to try raised donuts.  I even pitched in cause it sounded interesting and man can I put away donuts, with my coffee of course.  This was the result:

Talk about deeeellliiiiccccciiiiooooouuuuusss.  Warm out of the deep fry and I ate them by the pound.  I'll regret it later because without some exercise my shoes seem to get heavier every time I get on the scales.  My Doc says it's the steel toes but I don't wear steel toe boots??????  We figured we'd take some up to our neighbor's, Joe and Jan.  I told Joe the donut holes were for him and Jan was to get the donut. 

Cathy decided that, in addition to glazed, she'd try the powdered sugar.  I guess they turned out alright but I'll stick with the glazed cause you get more that way.  Heh Heh Heh!!!
          Since yesterday turned out so nice, I decided to go arrowhead hunting round about the mountain.  Didn't find anything below the house on the logging road but there was lots of wash out from recent rains and lots of flint chips all over, just no full arrowheads.  I figured I'd go visit a site about 2-3 miles down the road at a logging/lumber mill where the ground is usually very productive for finding artifacts and I have permission to hunt. 

I had just gotten off my 4 wheeler and looked down at my foot and found this.  Unfortunately it's been run over and such but the basics are there.  This was a Big Sandy point (4,000-6,000 yrs old), that by close examination, had been reworked by the original owner back in the day. 

This is what it would have originally looked like before being reworked or re-sharpened.  Obviously my find is a black chert while the one in the picture is probably a grey Ft. Payne chert, which is more common to this area.  Note the value of the undamaged point.  It gives a whole new perspective on hunting arrowheads.  I also came across this fossil:

Note the grooves in the surface.  I'd say it's some kind of plant bark or such.  Will have to do some internet research to see what I can find out.  Anyway between the donuts and artifacts, it was a pretty productive day after all.  Happy VALENTINE's day  ya'll.

It's hard to get old!!

Wow - Haven't been on the blog since before Christmas.  So - I thought I'd get on and do some updating and couldn't get on.  It's like the blog had been hijacked somehow cause the email it showed was not ours.  Anyway, not being a techy,  I had to play around for a couple of hours and finally got back on.  WHEW!  What a goat rope.   Now I can't upload pics to the blog.  What the Hey...A n y w h o -------
     We had a really super Christmas.  It started with my son, Stephen, loaning us his Honda Pilot so we could bring our daughter the grandkids up for the Holidays.  My truck, good as it is, just won't haul 8 people.  So we headed out south, spent the night in Macon, Ga. then went the rest of the way to Brooksville, Florida.  Picked up Stephen's suv, spent the night at Kristy's and hit the road the next morning for the return trip.

                     ((LtoR Lisa (dau-in-law), Kaylee, Kristy w/Hunter, Jynna, Steve & Cathy))

We drove straight through (14 hours) getting to Tennessee in the evening hours.  The next day the girls decided to decorate the tree and the inside of the house.  Cathy and I had decided to wait on decorating until the kids were here.

                                            ((LtoR - Kaylee, Jynna Mae, Kristy and Lilly))
Then the waiting started.  Lilly, our fashion-plate, couldn't keep out of the presents under the tree and Christmas morning was a whirlwind of activity.  We did manage to work in a quick breakfast.  It didn't snow for Christmas but it did snow just before we had to take the girls back to Florida.

                                                       ((Lilly our 6 y/o grand daughter))
This was our first time to see Hunter, our newest grand son, and it was his first Christmas.  This made it a very special time for them and us. 

                                                                        ((Hunter))

An unfortunate accident happened to this little guy just before they left.  He scooted backwards off the bed, fell between the bed and nightstand and broke his left femur, the ER doctor called it a "buckle fracture" and said it is commonly associated with very young children.  Anyway they took Kristy and Hunter to All Childrens Hospital in East Tennessee, Knoxville by ambulance and Cathy and I followed in the car.  It was a long day but turned out well as they put his leg in a stiff wrap to hold until he was back in Florida where he went to Tampa and had a cast put on.  He's working on his 3rd cast, so far.

                                  ((Lilly, in her Christmas dress made by Gma, and Hunter))

I still haven't figured out what was wrong earlier when I couldn't upload pics but I also found that I couldn't use our Skype to video chat either.  I downloaded new drivers, changed firewall and anti-virus settings, all to no avail.  I finally did a system "restore to earlier date" and !!viola !!,  we're back to normal.  Well, almost.  I'm still trying to figure out what happened.  Of course, with out two older grandkids here, both of whom are heavy into computers and ipads, and love to download songs etc, there probably just ain't no tellin'.  Oh well!  As the sayin' up here goes, "Mountain folk will survive."  Later.....