Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Morning at the Beach.....

Partying hard for the birthday girl last night (Yesterday was Ella's 4th birthday) made for a rough morning. The consequences of a late night, heavy doses of sugar and caffeine are apparent around here.



Elda-Beast, the birthday girl turns 4!









If you think THEY look rough, you should have seen the GROWN-UPS!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Currently showing on "Little House in the Big Woods"

More progress this week on the little cabin in the woods.





The roof rafters, decking and tar paper are up.






The beams for the back porch are in.




























A couple of views from the upstairs....kind of hard to visualize, but there will be a bedroom at either end with a central bath and loft area overlooking the den downstairs.

















This is the kitchen....doesn't look like much cooking will be going on there. That might be a way to save $$$....NO OVEN!








Looking from the dining room through the den and into the master bedroom. You will have to imagine one wall! Above is the loft overlooking the den.











Before and After shots of what I think this is currently my favorite part of the work accomplished thus far!......Removal and partial clean-up of most of the debris from an old fallen in log cabin that will hopefully one day be an outdoor kitchen/pavilion. I just KNEW there would be hundreds of snakes in the old timbers, but the only thing poisonous found was LOTS of old whiskey bottles....seems the old Judge who owned the Brownwood Cabin vacationed with Jack Daniels quite a bit!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Why I am a nature "Photographer"....

Here is the evidence.....you be the judge...

THIS...












OR THIS...




















THIS...















OR THIS....

















THIS...













OR THIS...


















THIS...












OR THIS...



















THIS...
















OR THIS...




















THIS...













OR THIS...



















THIS...














OR THIS...


















THIS...













OR THIS...














So, what do YOU think......Photographer or the SUBJECT?

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

On today's "episode" of Little House in the Big Woods....






If the weather continues to hold, we may get all the roof trusses/beam-things in this week! The crew comes in early (around 5am) to get a jump start on the heat. They are extremely hard-workers. It's kind of amazing watching how they have built out the second floor and roof. They only use short portable scaffolding, instead just build a "ladder" straight up into the air and work from there!!! They hand-lift all the heavy beams-no cranes or machinery to raise them.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

What MIGHT happen if your children find out they are the beneficiaries of your estate......

Last week Clara and I traveled up to Western NC/North Georgia to check on Mason and Jordie. They have been gone for about a month now, "working" as raft guides for the summer. They aren't exactly getting rich, but they are having lots of fun doing something they both enjoy and meeting new people/friends with very different approaches to life. This has been especially good for Jordie, as we ALL know she is a very sheltered and unsocialized homeschool graduate.

We traveled up on Wednesday, all excited about seeing them and getting to raft in addition. Clara's first trip down the Nantahala was two years ago, and she had weighed herself almost daily in the year leading up to her first trip, looking to break the magic sixty pound weight requirement to go down the river. She had been down twice in inflatable kayaks, called ducks, but had watched the rest of us go down many other times.


Jordan is working on the Nantahala at the NOC's(Nantahala Outdoor Center) outpost. Mason is working at the Chattooga River outpost, which is on the North Georgia/South Carolina border, which is about an hour or so from the Nantahala. For any of you banjo music fans, the Chattooga is where the movie "Deliverance" was filmed. As a matter of fact, some of the founders of the NOC were the stunt doubles for the canoeing-only scenes. (Like ANYONE would stunt-double for the OTHER scenes!)

So, Clara, Jordie and I head over to Clayton, GA near the Chattooga Outpost all lined up to go down the Chattooga with Mason as our guide. None of us (except Mason) had done this river before, so the excitement level was high. But no fear-we had the best guide on the river all lined up to take us down.

The day started out great. It was overcast and a bit rainy, but that just meant we wouldn't have to worry about getting sunburned. We were accompanied by another boat which contained a nice family (Mom and twin daughters) vacationing from FL. Their "men-folk" had decided on floating another much more thrilling (dangerous!) section of the river.

We alternated floating lazily for a bit with running nice little Class II and III rapids with funny little names like 8 Ball, Kick in the Butt and Houndstooth all the way down the river, soaking in the beautiful scenery in the gorge, with mountain laurel and rhododendron in full bloom. I relaxed and enjoyed the ride and the time with my children, all the while keeping my ears fine-tuned for any sounds of banjo music, pigs-squealing and danger of any other kind. Enter Bull Sluice rapid.



I knew this rapid was a bit more challenging, being a Class IV-V with a narrow margin of error to run while remaining IN the boat! I had pretty much decided that I didn't want Clara to run it, but gave her the option to look at it first before making a decision.

After seeing the rapid, Clara quickly opted out before I had a chance to tell her she couldn't ride this one. This was the spot where the photographer makes pictures, so she helped him out by holding an umbrella for him.

Fool that I am, I was PUMPED!!! I hadn't really run anything like this since the last time I had gone down the Ocoee. This was during the high-adventure mother/daughter weekend called "Estrogen-Fest" that I had organized a few years back with some dear friends of mine, which had turned into the trip-from-you-know-where. At any rate, maybe that should have been a sign. My "high-adventure" days might need to be toned down a bit. After all, I have "crunchy-bones" now and really don't have time for a broken hip!



Still grinning like a FOOL, pumped and ecstatic, we entered the rapid. I was having SO much fun trying to make sure the photographer got a great shot of us/me and making sure Clara saw just HOW MUCH FUN this was! I had no clue (since I was watching Clara and the photographer) that we had entered the rapid with our approach "just a bit" off. AND this run has a very small margin of error. AND we were outside that margin.





We dropped down the first part of the rapid screaming and squealing for joy (or terror), hit the bottom and were promptly thrown too far to the left onto a rock called the "decapitator". Fool that I CONTINUED to be, I was just HAVING A BLAST while grinning maniacally at Clara and the photographer. I wanted that "great shot"- Why they might even use our shot for the website....all the while wearing a goofy helmet that looked like a red bucket slammed down on my head. I really don't "do" hats well.






At some point I did realize that the people to my right (on the low side of the boat) were slipping down into the water and the same fate just might be mine, also. With me still grinning like a fool, we were captured in a time-lapsed sequence sliding into the water as the boat finally flipped.







I don't remember much of the underwater part except for coming up under the boat three different times and grabbing a bit of air in the pockets. I never felt panicked, but I do remember when I came up the last time thinking "This might not come out too good and I REALLY NEED to get out from under this raft!" I did finally get out and popped up quite a bit downstream from the others, still managing to hang on to my paddle. I grabbed the throw-rope and held on as we were pulled in. At that point, I really felt the power of the water and the insignificance of my power to swim against the current. Even though I knew we were all safe, that's when I got scared!






The rest of the group opted to run it a second time...perfectly, I might add. Not me. My legs were somewhat "rubbery" and I just wasn't that much in to trying it again. I'm not really afraid to go when my time rolls around, even longing for the indescribable joy that awaits me upon my earthly death, but I REALLY hated to drown right there in front of my kids. It might have messed up their summer. And to be honest, even though I've seen earthly death many times after working for almost twenty years as a nurse, I really prefer the "go-to-bed, go-to-sleep, wake up in paradise" death scenario.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We enjoyed a yummy picnic lunch served by our guides beside the river, complete with red-checked tablecloth. We did see a water-snake at the take-out point. This "snake thing" is about to do me in.

Back at the Outpost, poor Mason took a good bit of ribbing/teasing by his co-workers about trying to drown his Mom. They did mention something about the "family-curse". Seems like families who come up to raft with their family members working as guides have a very high rate of mishaps!

Now that a week or so has passed, I think I'm ready to go it again!!! But Clara will definitely "watch-only" on Bull Sluice until she is MUCH older.