God's Eye Candy

I don't care what kind of noise they make during summer breeding season, peacocks are God's eye candy. I always wanted one when I was a kid and lived in town. Once I moved out to the boonies, I acquired some as soon as I could find them. Fancy Boy here was hatched here, his parents unfortunately are gone, flown off to parts unknown but if they hatch somewhere they stay there. I have a female I call Cleo ( the girls do not make those noises that so unnerve people but they are not quite as fancy either) who is a black shoulder. Maybe this year I will have some eggs hatch again. I do so love peachicks.

#48 came and went painlessly

January 28th, 2010 was my 48th birthday. Let me tell you about how that 24 hours went. First on January 27th as I am picking up my ID card and leaving work, they have a note stuck on it, "your passenger rear tire is almost flat". Crap, I am 37 miles from home (or any sort of a garage). Fortunately there is an airhose at the checkpoint so I pull up to it and Jeremy, a young fellow I work with hops out and airs up the tire. I thank him and head straight to Walmart in Sparta pulling into the parking lot at 6:10 PM, I walk in and ask about getting the almost new tire plugged. The kid walks out and says oh no it is too close to the side wall we can't do it. Fan freaking tastic so I leave and go home. The tire is holding air so I get to work on my birthday, have a pretty good day at work. After work Archie takes me to Outback in Cookeville where I have 2 margaritas, and order their 6 oz sirloin with a blue cheese crust and green beans (YUMMY and enough left over for lunch the next day). I got this lovely pear shaped smoky topaz necklace from him. It is set in sterling and surrounded by shiny things , so I guess I'm like a mynah bird, I talk a lot and like shiny stuff. What can I say? After we get back home there is a small bottle of extra dry Korbel champagne from Christmas that we didn't open so I opened it and we finished it off. I slept the sleep of the guileless and innocent (so shut up all you who know me)

So this morning the 29th I still have air in the leaky tire and I head to take off the trash. By the time I get back from doing this, the snow has caused my valley to look like this. Into town I head for dogfood, sheep food, chicken food and to have the *&^%$$ tire plugged. I stop to get gas and can't get gas the computers are "frozen" . What in the hello is going on with me here? Anyway, I go to my local garage and my first good news, they can plug the tire, YAY! So I walk the block from the garage up to the local Walgreens so I won't be bored to death. I pick up some sundries I needed and walk back. Second piece of good news they fix my tire for free since I frequent them. Praise BE! Then on to the CoOp, load the Corolla up with feed and back home to the snowy valley. I cannot tell you how many wrecks I pass or how slow I have to drive to stay away from the people sliding all over Hwy 1. It was scary but I didn't actually have any problems driving in the mess. So home I am, everything is fed, watered and tucked into somewhere they are pleased. Looks like I am tucked in for a cold weekend, maybe I can get some updates on my website done!

Bridgestone Firestone Centennial Wilderness

10 more miles yesterday, rocks, river, an old cemetery

MLK day hike, Bridgestone Firestone Centennial Wilderness

Drove up to White Co/Cumberland Co line today to the Bridgestone /Firestone Centennial

Wilderness area. (big corporations donated over 100,00 acres after not finding a way to profit with it). Archie parked @ 4.6 miles from Caney Fork River and we hiked an ATV trail down to it and back. Lovely country side, lots of neat rock formations, a roaring white water river at the bottom and an old cemetery where there weren't even names on the markers. Lots of fun, try it if you are in the area.

Black Mountain Hike, TN

Archie and I are really pretty serious about training for the Mount Whitney hike in Sept or Oct this year so we headed out while the nice weather was holding to try and get a hike of around 9.3-9.5 miles done today. Had a late start as the fellow who bought my 4 goats ( YAY! I no longer have goats those alien ruminants that test your patience, are the worst parents ever and live to think of escaping) called and said he'd be here late but by 11:30 AM we were on the trail. (link above). We did the loop around the top of the mountain then hiked down the mountain on the 3.8 mile section of the Cumberland trail then hiked back up it. Jeeze Louise another Navy Seal in training hike although not straight down it was a constant slope down then after 3.8 miles of that a constant slope up. Great rock formations, old house remains, an old springhouse, a cave, creek crossings, overlooks, you name it this trail has it although as I laughed hysterically I though maybe a bit early in the season for a 9 plus miler but we made it with no injuries or major pain although I am feeling "stove up" as we say in the South and a bit stiff tonight as is the Arch. Will be trying a similar sort of hike on Monday as it is a holiday and we'd like to get two pretty serious hikes in this weekend if the weather will hold off raining on us. Right now it is just pouring rain but didn't during our hike. Our time was decent 5 hours on the nose for it, not bad considering the last 3.8 miles was all uphill.

My Cats

For those who haven't met them the Siamese lookalike is Peaches given to me over 10 years ago by my friend Vickie Littleton, the black one is Beevis who was picked by myself from a litter of wild kittens at my friend and coworker Nancy's house because he looked so much like President Clinton's "Socks" and the gray kitten is Neon who came running out a couple of months ago when I was looking at vans at the Dodge place and the salesman said she had showed up several days before and was going to get run over. Of course I could not leave her. Beevis has been the head puppy trainer for several years now and will put the fear of the feline in most any puppy who gets too fresh with his biggish fifteen pounds or maybe more black butt.

Brasstown Bald or How I spent New years Day 2010

The best laid plans of mice and men...............

Had read up on the Southeastern High Points and several of them are drive ups, Brasstown Bald in Northeast Georgia is listed as one of these. A very respectable 4784 feet we decided to drive down on NYD to GA and then drive up to the parking lot at the base of the high point to hike the last 0.6 mile to the observation tower at the top.

Right.....

We arrived at the intersection of GA 180 and the 3 mile 180 spur that goes up the mountain to the park to find that THE SPUR WAS CLOSED and had a big iron closure thing bolted across it. It was around 3 PM eastern time. Archie is like well we have driven 180 plus miles what is a 3 mile hike. There were two cars that pulled in the parking lot there just as we did and a party of around 8-10 twenty somethings bailed out of their cars and began the ascent after we did. My God what a steep road, wikipedia says the average grade there is 11.2% it is the steepest of the ascent routes. I didn't know that until I read it later but I remember thinking it was unbelievably steep.

At any rate the sun had just begun to set by the time we got to the top, the two parties of youngsters behind us had long given up the chase to bag this high point long before the first of the three mile markers were ticked off. We snapped a couple of photos and ran up the tower, lovely but no photos from there due to the lighting. Dark now and it was only around 28 degrees when it was light, I had a turtleneck and pullover on with my elmer fudd hat and some lined suede gloves. Underdressed for the weather no doubt.

Eleven percent downhill in pitch black darkness and freezing cold was more fun than anyone should have on New Years. No alcohol involved here, we were stone cold sober. At one point my knees protested so much that not only was I walking down this 11% grade with my hands under my arms as I couldn't feel my fingers in the cold when they were only in my pockets but I was descending backwards down the middle in the dark because it was way easier than walking forward downhill. It was a lovely view at the top. My advice go in warmer weather if you plan to hike what is known as Jacks Gap as we did.

Sunday December 27th 2009, Cheaha Mt, AL High Point

Cheaha Mt has its own state park and also lots of rock climbing areas that we hiked down to and took photos of (the Pulpit Rock trail and Rock Garden trail but we only made it to Pulpit because I was FREEZING). There is an observation tower at the highest point. It is between I 20 and I59 east of Birmingham in the Talladega Mts which are southern foothills of the Appalachian Mts. There is also an entrace to the Appalachian trail here that we took photos of ( yeah I thought it ended in GA but they swear in their blurb on the trailhead that it really ends here) It's a lovely park and if we are ever adept enough at rock climbing to top rope we will have to come back here to climb.

Saturday December 26th-Driskill Hill, Louisiana High Point!

Driskill Mt is just south of I20 and outside of Arcadia, LA. It's about a 1 mile hike into privately owned property across a ridgeline on a well marked trail. There's another well marked trail that goes through the woods and up the ridgeline a bit more challenging and that is the one we opted for. At the high point there is a pretty lovely overlook ( who would have thought that 535 feet would produce an impressive overlook but here on such flat land it does). It was a nice day after Christmas for us.