My Rich Family

Have you ever had family members that you just absolutely LOVE being around? I do. They are my rich family. By rich I don't mean they have lots of money but they have lots of love, kindness, sincerity, and all those qualities that make you the most important kind of rich. The one in the middle is my grandmother's sister, Lib and she is sweet, stubborn, feisty, ornery, caring, honest... There aren't enough words to describe her. The other two are her daughters - you would have never guessed, right? One of her daughters is not in this picture but I love her just the same as her two sisters. I can never spend enough time with them.

This is another one. She is one of the busiest people I know who still manages to have time for you if you drop by. My family, especially my kids, love her!

These are a bunch of the kids, though not all of them, that were at our picnic at Metcalf bottoms a couple of weeks ago.

We had a picnic lunch and dinner with a little snoozing in between.

Why don't we take the time to do this more often? It was a day spent playing in the river, eating (which is what we do best), and gabbing. It was fun!

Let Me Try Just One More Time...

Robin and Brian provided this kneeboard and we just know we are gonna love it - when we ever learn to do it...

Maybe...

Getting closer...

I believe he has it...

Nope.

After several more tries...

Woo hoo!!

Barnyard Confusion

My cousin, Brad, was mowing a hay field recently when he ran across a turkey nest. He SAYS he didn't run across the turkey (if you know what I mean), but he apparently was confident mama turkey wasn't coming back so he gathered up her still warm eggs and brought them to my dad. For his chickens to sit on. Apparently they will sit on anybody's eggs... More than half of the turkey eggs hatched and this is a what a baby turkey looks like.

This momma is very protective of her babies, though they don't look a thing like her.

If you look towards the top of this shell, you can see a little hole. This turkey has not hatched yet but is going to any time. They peck around the whole circumference of the egg about 3/4 of the way to the top then the top of the shell is pushed away. Voila! Baby turkey.

These are the ones that still haven't hatched. The turkey eggs are the polka dotted ones.

Remember these two abducted/adopted babies? They, with their kidnapper, were moved to the house where they lived in a dog crate. Since they LOVE bugs and have a very limited territory to find them, we would find bugs for them and drop them into the crate from the top. Whenever we come to the crate now, they all three start looking up, waiting for a bug to be dropped in to them.

The two guinea babies that were kidnapped when they were born have been raised by a banty hen. Banties are small body chickens and these guineas are already as big as her. But... they can still sleep under her wings.

So, we have turkeys being raised by a chicken, guineas being raised by a banty (who think bugs fall out of the sky), this calf who thinks she is a lap dog...

And a dog that thinks he is a mountain goat...

Cades Cove - week 3

This is our third week of going to Cades Cove for Ant and Al to run the four mile loop. Course it's no burden to me to go enjoy the scenerey as I WALK those same four miles. Who knew, though, that the park is closed to cars until 10 a.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays only? I don't think they got much out of this run because of the car dodging they had to do.

This is their usual order when they run. Alex in front and Anthony behind her. He doesn't mind at all. I think he is drafting. If Alex were drawing her last breath, she would be in front when they run. If you cut her legs off, she would still manage to be in front. That is just how she rolls. She doesn't like to tie. Or lose.

Every week we have seen lots of turkey and some deer. These two bucks were really close to the road "'cause they ain't scared of us". They know the words National Park. That is the first words they teach their babies. I am sure of it.

We usually take our shoes off for this creek but the water was low enough to rock hop this week.

I keep taking my camera with me on these walks in hopes of seeing bears. I think if I left my camera in the car, we might actually see some.

Lucky Me, Part 2

Alex has really gotten in to this running thing in Cades Cove so we went back again this week, week 2. I really don't mind. How can you mind when you get to walk four miles with only views like this? (We walk while Ant and Al run.) While we are walking through the Cove we wonder what their lives were like. At one time there were as many as 800 people living there with its own school, churches, post office, lawyers, doctors, etc. Just like Walnut Grove on Little House on the Prairie.

I always think I was born several hundred years late, that I would have enjoyed this era. Then, I think of things like dishwashers, clothes washers, central heat and air, hot water, and most importantly our bathrooms (that are inside the house) and I think I'm probably better off just dreaming about it.

Things You Thought You'd Never Need to Know

There are some things I thought I would never need to know. The gestation period of lizard eggs is one of them. While we were looking for bugs to feed to the baby guineas we lifted a rock and found a lizard. She (we are sure of the gender on this one) was always under this rock. One day when we were checking on her we were surprised to see five eggs. She curls around them - I suppose to keep them warm - but since she's a reptile and cold blooded does she need to keep her eggs warm? I think so... Anyway, the gestation period for lizard eggs is three weeks. In case you ever need to know.

Tony's Papaw

Last week I had a most coveted day off - only to spend it getting oil changed, repairs to the car, paying a few bills, grocery shopping, and a quick trip to the mall. We had left early that morning to try to get everything done and hopefully be home around lunchtime so that I would have a little "time off". We were going by Tony's Papaw's house first thing that morning to deliver some corn Anthony was selling. Guess what we saw? We saw a very sweet 88-year-old man mowing his yard. Push mowing his yard. With a push mower. At 88. Already that morning he had delivered his truck to get some body work done on it and he was temporarily homebound. He decided he would go to breakfast with us. Which threw us off schedule. Luckily. That turned out to be the best sidetrack to a day off I think I have ever had - we didn't get home til 4:00.