Back In the Saddle Again!

We are now half way through the year and almost half way through the sixth month.  It's been a little over a month since my last post, and what a month it has been!

As my family and friends know, I have always loved horses and have never missed an opportunity to ride.  That is until my back problems got serious enough that I could no longer comfortably or safely ride.  It has been close to 15 years since I have been on horseback, but, with Mountain Man's encouragement, I got back in the saddle again!  It was, at the same time, one of the scariest and also one of the most thrilling things that I have done in a long while.  Because of the nerve damage in my back and legs, I quickly found out that my legs are not nearly as strong as they once were.  Maintaining correct posture and stance in the saddle was incredibly difficult.  So not to embarass myself, Mountain Man and I waited til the stable was closed for the day to take my ride.  The horse that Mountain Man selected for me was Chubby Checkers.  He was chosen because of his smoothness, which he was incredibly smooth.  He also is a little on the impatient side, not wanting to stand and wait while I refamiliarized my body to being on horseback.  Needless to say, most of my adjustments were made while on the trail.  The land that the trails are on at the stable is some of the most beautiful land in this part of Georgia.  There is so much to look at and take in that I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention to what I was doing since it is no longer natural for my body to just settle in and ride without any conscious effort.  We quickly found that the beautiful mountain trails weren't going to work for me.  With not much leg strength, I was going to be relegated to flat land trails which have a beauty all their own.  Crossing streams and meadows, we were able to enjoy the mountain views all around us.  Since it was after hours, all of the horses had been turned out for the night.  As we went further on the trails, we would come across a few horses here and there and since they are trained to follow the trails with their pack, even though they were "off duty", they just followed in line behind us. Before the ride was through, instead of just our two horses, we now had close to a dozen horses on the trail with us.  It was quite a sight!  As our ride came to an end, we approached the gate for the stable.  When we went back to the barn to dismount, we looked back and the rest of the horses were still standing at the gate waiting patiently for their friends.  After taking their saddles off and giving them a good long drink of water, we walked our horses back over and through the gate.  There they met up with their friends and went off into the forest for their own adventures in the night.  Even though I will never be able to ride like I once could, I'm glad that I took the chance and now know that I will be able to join Mountain Man for an occasional ride off into the sunset.

The first week of June, I was Ohio bound.  The token son had business in his Atlanta office and when he was ready to return to Ohio, he got me a ticket and I flew back with him.  I was blessed to spend a week with the Grands just being Bhakti.  I had no one or nothing pressing me for my time.  Whether it was just sitting watching cartoons with them, reading books, or going for walks, they had my undivided attention, and I theirs. I was also able to spend a great deal of time with my Middle Chile and  Daughter in Love.   The time with Middle was especially good since she had already closed out the teaching year, finished her first year of her master's program and the church choir that she directs was already on their summer hiatus.  For her, all the stressers were gone and her time was her own which made for an awesome visit.   The highlight of my trip was getting to attend my oldest grand's first dance recital.  What a joy it was to see her and all of her fellow students nervously walk onto the stage and wait for the music to start.  After the first few beats of the song, you could see her nerves disappear and see her get lost in the dance.  What a beautiful thing to see all of those little people find their joy in moving with the rhythm of music.  Dancing has always been one of my great loves in life.  From a young age, learning to do the Polka with my dad in our living room to imitating the June Taylor dancers on the Jackie Gleason show and then as I got older learning the newest dance steps in front of the TV with my friends watching Band Stand and Soul Train.  Music and dance have always freed my soul and brought me great joy.  Just ask anyone who has ever attended a wedding reception with me.  I'm the first one on and the last one off of the dance floor and will drag everyone that I know out there with me!  All of the Chillin' are great dancers too.  When they were young and money was tight, me and Mountain Man would have our own personal dances on Saturday nights.  We would dance together with all of the Chillin until we were too tired to dance another step.  Now it warms my heart to see my Token Son with his wife and the Grands along with my Middle Chile all dancing together in his living room.  The songs are different, but the love and joy that fill that house when the music starts are the same.

After the week in Ohio that went way too quickly I was back on a plane heading south.  I will admit, I was a little nervous flying into Atlanta alone.  The last time that I had flown into Atlanta was when I was 16 and it was a whole other animal then!  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the airport is to navigated. Token Son had shown me around the airport when we flew to Ohio, so, I was able to retrieve my luggage, purchase my Marta ticket and find my train to North Spring where I was being picked up by Mountain Man with no difficulty. After all of the horror stories you hear, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of it all and won't hesitate to travel alone through there again.

On Sunday, one of our new friends at the stable had a graduation party for her beautiful daughter at Lake Chatuge.  The weather was picture perfect and so was the company.  We had a wonderful picnic and then they rented two pontoon boats.  We rode around on the lake all afternoon taking in the breathtaking combination of mountain views along with a crystal clear mountain lake.  When you combine the food, views and wonderful people, it was a perfect day and again another reason to count our blessings.  I'm sure that there aren't many places around with such awesome people.  People who are not only coworkers, but have quickly become family.  We are truly blessed and until next month, I pray that you will also realize and appreciate all the blessings in your life.

It's May??? Where did April go?

Wow, what they say is true; time flies when you are having fun!  I'm not sure where the last month has gone.  I do know that we've been extremely busy and still trying to squeeze in a little fun every now and then.  

Mountain Man has been working at Trackrock Stable for almost two months now.  He is loving it.  They have given him a horse for his own personal use and he is living his dream of being a cowboy.  He works with a phenomenal crew of people who have taken him in and love and appreciate him and all that he has to offer.  The bonus here is that I stop in occasionally and get to love on all of those fantastic beasts.  I have also gotten to practice my Reiki while hanging around the stable.  There's always a horse here or there that has pulled a muscle or has some aches and pains that permit me to direct some of our Creator's healing energy into their bodies.  Horses are amazing creatures in that they are excellent communicators. If they know where and what the problem is, they are willing to communicate that to you so that you are able to help them.  I truly enjoy this interaction with horses and all animals for that matter because they are not natural born doubters.  Without even trying, they feel the healing energy and relax into it and accept what they need.  I have even had the rare pleasure of transferring our Creator's healing energy into a brand new foal.  She was born several weeks early and had an infection.    There was some doubt about whether she would be able to fight hard enough to survive.  Her owners were able to get the medical care for her that she so desperately needed and graciously allowed me to lay my hands on this sweet baby to fill her with healing energy and peace.  Since she was so relaxed and open from the Reiki, her body was able to metabolize the medication much quicker and I am happy to say that she is now growing and the infection has subsided and she has a very bright, healthy future ahead of her.

One day, soon after Mountain Man started working at the stable, I rode along with him when he had to deliver some paperwork to the stable owner.  Before I go any further, I should also say that she not only has the stable, but also a beautiful campground and cabins all tucked away in the mountains of the Chattahoochee National Forest.  So, Mountain Man and I were visiting with Boss Lady and out of the blue, she asked me if I would like a job.  She was looking for someone to clean the five cabins in the campground.  Without even giving it a second thought, I eagerly accepted her offer.  I have finally learned after many, many years not to question or turn down a gift from above when it is presented to you.  When we moved to the mountains, did I move here with the intent of being a cabin cleaner?  I can honestly say, NO, not at all.  But, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't do it!  We always hear that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  Well, I have, after almost 56 years, finally learned that it's best just not to make any plans.  Take the opportunities that are presented to you and run with them.  Needless to say, I have grabbed my broom and my dust rag and ran for the hills.  Literally!  After accepting this job, I meditated on God's reasoning behind it.  This is the answer that I was given. When I am blessed enough to go on vacation, wherever it is, I am able to relax easier and enjoy myself more when my surroundings are extremely clean and tidy.  This is my opportunity to give the gift of a neat and clean cabin for our guests to relax in, to unwind from a hectic life, and to spend quality time either alone or in the midst of their loving families.  This is, at times, strenuous work and at times, exhausting work.  But it is always rewarding.  When I am able to finish cleaning a cabin and fill it with positive energy and prayers for the incoming guests' peace, love and relaxation, I know that I have done my job well.  Apparently, I must be good at this because shortly after starting,  I wasn't even able to clean as deeply and I truly wanted to, but the health inspector came to inspect the cabins and they were given a 100%. This reassured me that I was doing the right thing.  The other hidden blessing in accepting this job was that I have met the most phenomenal people that live and work in the camp grounds.  These are people from all walks of life and all ages.  They have taken me in and treat me as if I were a member of their family.  I have only been working there for a short time, yet, I feel as if I have known these people forever!  They are all blessings to me and I sincerely hope that I am able to bring some of the happiness and joy to their lives that they have brought to mine.

I am constantly seeing on social media and hearing people talk either about themselves or others that they just can't find a job and I think that this is a true statement, especially if you think that some jobs are beneath you or that there are jobs you just don't want to do.  I really believe that if people will put it out into the universe that they are open and waiting for an employment opportunity and then truly stay open and listen, that an opportunity will present itself to them.  It may not be their "dream job" or what their idea of the perfect job is, but it will be doing exactly what they should be doing and with the people that they should be with and this is where the gifts from heaven truly lie.  It will be in the life lessons that they learn and the people that they will meet that will make a job into a blessing from above!

All Creatures Great and Small

Having almost two months under our belt since our last trip back to Ohio, Mountain Man and I are relaxing and have fallen into a comfortable routine in our little cabin.  Having the time to be more mindful of our surroundings now, we are able to focus on the beauty of nature around us.  Living in the forest, you never know what you will see or hear.  The original owners of our cabin landscaped the area around the cabin beautifully.  You can tell that they loved it here by their attention to detail that they gave to the arrangement of the flowers, trees and shrubs.  Every time I walk around our property, I say a prayer of thanks for those people.  I almost wish that we could have bought our place directly from them because the gentleman that we bought from was not here very often and had obviously no interest in the upkeep of this beautiful property.  If you haven't already guessed, we have been spending a great deal of time outside raking and cleaning up years worth of leaves, pine straw and weeds.  When we first moved in, the property had been basically weed whacked down to bare dirt in the middle and was totally overgrown around the edges.  I have been working steadily, section at a time, trimming, digging and generally cleaning up.  My reward has been each little daffodil that has poked it's sweet yellow head up, each fern that is, for the first time in several years, feeling the sunshine warming its roots, and a variety of green plants just starting to gain the strength to wake up from their long naps.  With living in the mountains, I have more Mountain Laurels than I can count, several azaleas that I am excitedly waiting to see bloom, not to mention the crepe myrtles, forsythias and other assorted shrubs.  But, my favorite by far is my giant pear tree.  It is the biggest and fullest pear tree that I have ever seen.  It stands well over 30 feet tall and spreads out into a perfect egg shape that must be nearly 20 feet in diameter.  Right now, it is in full bloom and looks like a giant white egg.  When we first moved in, Mountain Man and I had a battle of the wills about this tree.  All I could see was a perfect specimen in need of nothing but love and rain.  All he could see was a chance to use his chain saw for some serious pruning.  Thankfully, we had to have some tree work done and while the gentleman was here working, I took the opportunity to inquire about the best way to maintain the beauty of the pear tree.  His words were music to my ears! "Don't do anything.  It's perfect the way it is."  Poor Mountain Man then had to put his chain saw away for another day and my tree was saved!  Other than just the general beauty of this tree, I also love it because it is home to so many little birds.  We have the pear tree on one side of the deck and at the other end is a giant cedar tree.  Between the two, they house lots of birds, squirrels and even some bats!  Down in the front of our property, in front of a whole row of Laurel, we have established a food plot for all of our critters.  We get bags of local corn and sunflower seeds and keep a pile on the ground for whatever comes through and is hungry.  We get an incredible variety of birds, from the tiniest of wrens to the huge Pileated woodpecker hanging in the trees.  We have a resident chipmunk who has now eaten so much corn that he's starting to look like a small squirrel.  I love to watch him wander out to the pile and make himself at home right in the middle of it and spend his entire afternoon eating!  When he is on the pile, all of the birds have to work around him because he never learned to share!  We have also had a variety of other critters come to dinner.  Rabbits, raccoons, opossums, squirrels and deer.  No matter the time of day or night, whenever you look over the rail down to the food pile, there is always some bird or critter having a meal.  Part of my joy of living in the forest is making a wildlife habitat that draws all of nature close to us.  You see, we have worked out a sweet deal for everyone involved, we feed their bodies and their beauty feeds our souls.

Life Never Ceases to Amaze Me

Here it is, February first already!  Where has the month of January gone?  I hope for all of you that it was a happy and peaceful month filled with wonder and joy.  Mine?  Well, it was full of surprises, happiness and new experiences.

To begin with, if you have read my January post, you will remember that I was sad about not seeing my Grands for Christmas.  Well, you'll never guess who showed up on our doorstep the end of the first week of January.  Aw, you guessed!  Mountain Man and I had gotten up fairly early and were sitting out on the deck, having coffee, enjoying an unusually warm January morning.  Since we only have three other full time families on our side of the mountain, we recognize by sound and sight all of the cars that come past our cabin.  As we were looking out over the mountainside, we heard a truck coming up the road that didn't sound familiar.  As it appeared around the curve, Mountain Man remarked that it looked just like Token Son's truck.  Me, being the curious and slightly nosey person that I am, ran to the other side of the deck to see if I could see where it was heading.   Well, wouldn't you just know it, it pulled right in our driveway!  I wouldn't have been any more surprised if I woke up with my head stapled to the floor!!!  After a whole lot of whooping and hollering and kissing and hugging we found out that they had plans in the works for quite a while to surprise us with a visit and I must say, it worked like a charm.   So, we were able to spend some wonderful, quality time with our Chillin' and  the grands.  The highlight of the week being their first horseback riding experience.  We knew that the older sis would ride since she had gotten to do a pony ride in the past.  The younger sis?  She was a crap shoot.  At not quite two, you truly never know how she'll react to any given situation.  She made Mountain Man's day! She took to that horse like a duck takes to water!  We now have two little cowgirls in the family and I'm sure many fun times ahead riding with them when they come to visit.

The week with the Grands went waaaay too fast.  You see, I'm greedy with my time with all of my Chillin' and my Grands.  There is NEVER enough of it!  But, seeing how, the very next week after they left, we had to make a trip back to Ohio for a memorial service for Mountain Man's first Mother-In-Law and my adopted Mama.  So this meant not only bonus time with the Chillin's and Grands, but getting to see so many friends and distant relatives that we don't get to see nearly enough.  Girls that were just babies themselves yesterday are now successful career women with families of their own.  Young men who were busy raising families and carving out their place in the world are now grandfathers and are either retired or looking forward to retirement.   The "old people" are mostly gone and WE are the "old people".   It seems like just yesterday I was 18 years old, now I look in the mirror and don't even recognize the face that I see.   Getting to see everyone again and catch up on our lives made us realize just how quickly time is passing and how much we can't take a moment of it for granted.

When we returned to our beautiful mountains from Ohio, we decided not to let any grass grow under our feet.  We know that we will both have to get jobs soon since Social Security is never enough.  But, until we start working again, we are trying to spend as much time as possible out in our beautiful backyard, the Chattahoochie National Forest.  Since we have been blessed with an unusually mild winter (even by North Georgia standards), we have been hiking as many trails as possible, experiencing the great  beauty of as many waterfalls as we can find and experiencing all the beauty that nature has to offer us.  This doesn't mean that we are running a race to see everything there is to see.  No, we are truly taking our time by hiking a slow pace.  You see, we don't want to miss one little thing in nature.  Whether it is a new plant peaking up through the leaves, a print from one of many little woodland critters in the mud or a claw mark from a bear searching for bugs in an old tree stump or under a rock.  We are finding that when we truly slow down our pace, it is easier to breathe, easier to move and easier to rest.  I pray that when we return to the working world, we will be able to keep to this slower, more mindful pace to make the most of this beautiful life that we have.

Happy 2017!

I have started this page in my head more times than I can count.  I have actually been writing it since December 1.  Every time that I would think that I had my idea concreted enough to blog about it, something would happen that made me rethink it.  After a few days, I would start over with a modified idea and again something would happen to change my thought process, and so on, and so on.   I'll give you an abbreviated rundown of my month's worth of failed attempts before I get to my actual current thought.  Hopefully, that will help to make sense of this current entry.

My first thought for this entry was how was I going to deal with spending my first Christmas without my Chillin' and Grands.  I must admit, I was feeling more than a little sorry for myself thinking about all what I would be missing. After all, in all my years of being a Mountain Mama, I have always had at least two of the Chillin' if not all three in my house over the Christmas season.  Plus I have always been blessed with getting to watch my Grands open all of their gifts on Christmas.  Well, that poor me story wasn't long for this world because I received word that our oldest Chile, her hubby and their mountain pup would be trekking up from Florida to spend Christmas with us.  This renewed my Christmas joy.  Mountain Man and I set out every Christmas decoration that we have.  We decorated inside and out.  Thank goodness I always dreamed of a mountain Christmas because I had everything that I needed to decorate our mountain cabin.  We did get a new Christmas tree, though.  Since this is my first vaulted ceiling, I felt the need to have a tree that I had to stand on a ladder to put the angel on top, that was the only new decoration that we sprung for.  I must say, our cabin became a warm and welcoming Christmas mountain retreat.  Everything inside was adorned with lighted pine roping, beautiful red cardinals and pinecones galore.  Add in the bluegrass Christmas music playing in the background and I felt like I was living in a Hallmark movie!

My next thought was about Christmas gifts or lack there of. We along with our Ohio Chillin' decided not to exchange gifts this year, but to adopt families in need instead.  I am so happy with this new tradition that I hope it is one that we will carry on for many years.  Our token Son's wife (our daughter of the heart) is such a thrifty shopper that it was truly amazing at all of the wonderful gifts that she was able to buy for all of our families.  As I said, I hope this tradition continues for a long time, but I LOVE giving to my family, so that was a very difficult thing for me to come to terms with.  There would be no gifts from Mama this year.  Well, no one said that I couldn't MAKE gifts!  I ended up spending two solid weeks crocheting and sewing until I had a large suitcase full of homemade gifts to send up to Ohio with our oldest Chile when she went up for a few days.  When there's a will, there's a way, I always say!!!

My next topic was going to be not getting to be with the Grands when they opened their gifts.  Anyone who has ever been blessed by being with little ones at Christmas can appreciate the joy and awe that they bring to the season. Because of my thoughtful Token Son, I didn't have to miss it this year either! Through the miracle of video chat, I was able to watch my Mountain Babies open their gifts and had a wonderful visit with them.  Even though I couldn't feel their little arms around my neck, to hear them say "I love you, Bhakti" warmed my heart just as much.

Our Christmas Eve was a joyous day.  My oldest and I spent the entire day baking cookies and Christmas goodies.  It had been a really long time since she had been around when I was doing my baking, so it was a special gift to me to get to spend the whole day baking with her.  I hope she knows how much that time together meant to me.

Christmas day turned out to be an unusually warm and sunny day.  After having a leisurely morning of opening gifts, breakfast, and long distance phone visits, we threw our Christmas roast in the crockpot and headed out to Meeks Park. Meeks Park is our local community park which I have never seen the likes of in any of the states that I have visited.  It is filled with beautiful walking trails along the river with swings located every so often so you can rest and enjoy the river view.  Baseball fields galore, multiple playgrounds, basketball courts, tennis and pickleball courts and of course the beautiful community pool dot the rest of the several acre park. The park was teaming with people that also wanted to enjoy the beauty of our Christmas day.  As we walked along the trail by the river, everyone that we passed wished us a Merry Christmas and a good day.  It made me feel that we were celebrating Christmas not as a few people in a family, but as part of an entire community.  What an awesome gift!

My Christmas carried over to December 26 when our Ohio daughter surprised us by making the drive down to spend the rest of the week with us and her sister. If I live to be 100, I will never tire of those kinds of surprises.  Needless to say, the rest of Christmas week was filled with the joy of family.  We visited, shopped, ate, and most importantly, enjoyed each other's company.  

Now it's New Years Day.  The Chillins have all gone to their respective homes and the cabin is quiet once again.  Last night, after Mountain Man retired early for the last night of the year, I sat alone in the living room.  I listened to the quietness of the cabin and our forest around us.  I reflected on the past year and all of the happenings, both good and bad.  If you ask just about anyone, me included, they are glad to say so long to 2016.  It was a turbulant year at best filled with war, deaths, elections, crimes and depression.  But, as I reflected, at least for me personally, for every negative thing that life threw at me, I was then gifted with at least double that in positive things.  Sometimes, while in the midst of the dark night, we aren't able or willing to look beyond to the horizon to the sunrise.  There have been many times in my own life that I am in the middle of a rough period that it is all I can do to muster the energy to keep moving forward.  Through my Creator, I always do manage to do just that, keep moving forward.  I do this because I have chosen to be a survivor.  A happy survivor!

This is my New Year's wish for all of you, my friends.  Be a survivor.  I know that everyone wishes for good health, prosperity, happiness and all of the other cliches that go along with the beginning of a new year.  I have found that if I only concentrate on surviving, all of the other goodies come along with the success of surviving.  Everyone has to find their own personal way to get through the sadness, stress and basically crap that the world throws at us. Sometimes it's all we can do to remember that our Creator wants only happiness for us, and if we can keep on wading through the mire, fueling our strength with happy thoughts and memories, soon we will be standing in front of a beautiful sunrise of a new day.  

I'm Baaaaack!

I'm sure that because of my two plus week haitus, a lot of you thought that I gave up on my feeble attempt at blogging.  Wrong!  Mountain Man and I made a trip up to Ohio for a combination birthday celebration for our token son's wife and their eldest chile and Thanksgiving.  As anyone who has ever moved away from their home state and then gone back to visit, it's impossible to see everyone on the "I need to get together with..." list.  I made my list, checked it twice, added a few more names and then both Mountain Man and I got sick. He with a severe sinus infection (partially blamed on breathing the smoke from the forest fires), and I with my usual standby thyroid issues that had been brought on by the stress of the move and the exhaustion from the renovations. Needless to say, other than the immediate fam, our doctors got to visit us the most in our first week in Ohio.   Always looking for a bright side, feeling like I had been run over by a truck made me take it much easier than normal and gave me a lot more snuggle and reading time with my two grands.  You will never hear this Bhakti (their name for me) complain about too much snuggle time!  

Thanksgiving was a beautiful day. The whole day before, we cooked and spent the day together, and on Thanksgiving day, it was awesome!  The first Thanksgiving day in 30 some years that I didn't put the meal together!  Once the turkey was in the oven, I was off duty.  I got to watch the Macy's Parade, play, read the newspaper peruse the ads and just plain relax.  It was one of the best Thanksgivings EVER!  The kids did a fantastic job of putting on the dinner.  They have learned well and the baton has been passed.  We have had a changing of the guard!  Can you tell that I am totally excited by this change of events? After our family dinner, Mountain Man went back to bed,  my Daughter-in-Law (I really dislike that term for her.  She is as much mine as my two girl chillin so until I can come up with an appropriate title for her I will from herein refer to her as one of the girl chillin and you can just be confused!) took the two grands to her family Thanksgiving and my two chillin and I went to the nursing home to visit Mountain Man's ex mother-in-law.  She is actually our mama of the heart since she never let go of Mountain Man and she adopted me and mine when we got married 26 years ago.  She has been laid up in a nursing home for the past 15 months since breaking both legs in a fall.  We had a wonderful visit with her and promised to be back in a few days to see her again.  Then we went to visit our girl chile's family for a while.  Shortly after we all got home in the evening, we received a call that our mama of the heart had passed away shortly after we left.  Even though we had watched her health fail over the past few years, she was doing so well on Thanksgiving that we were totally in shock when the call came.  I am so blessed to have had that one last great visit with her.

The next week was a blur trying to catch up with all of the promised visits.  I must say, I failed miserably.  I did get to stop into my old place of employment and I got to see a lot of my beloved coworkers.   It felt really good that they were as excited to see me as I was to see them.  Hopefully, during my next trip to Ohio -- we are supposed to go up in January for the memorial service-- I will be able to see the rest of them and everyone else on my list.  

Leaving Ohio was bittersweet.  As you would expect, I hate having to say goodbye to my chillin' and my grands, but after being in Ohio for those two weeks, Mountain Man and I realized that Ohio is not home anymore.  Our home is in our sweet little cabin in the beautiful North Georgia mountains.  As much as we love being with our family and friends, there is just something in these mountains.  On the drive home, as soon as we could see the mountains again, we had an overwhelming sense of inner peace and joy.  It's a combination of so many things that it's hard to pinpoint what exactly makes this feel like home.  I know that at this time of year, our town is much smaller,  it only consists of the full timers now.  All of the Floridians and summer renters have gone home for the rest of the year.    Now, when you pass a car on the road, you get a friendly wave.  When you pass someone on the street in town, they stop to chat for a moment.  It's more like living with an extended family rather than a town full of strangers.  We went to the annual Christmas parade (Yes, it was a Christmas Parade, not a "Holiday" parade) downtown last night.  The whole town comes out for events such as this.  There was music on the town square.  Santa was visiting with all of the children,  the ladies of the historical society had a bake sale set up and I'm pretty sure they sold out!  The parade was great fun, but then again, I am partial to parades!  After the parade was over, we stopped in to the local coffee shop not only for a caffeine fix, but to visit with the owners. Then after walking around town, we stopped into the motel that we stayed in while waiting to get in our house in what now seems was a lifetime ago.  The owners of the hotel not only remembered us, but welcomed us with warm hugs. We enjoyed a great visit with them before making our way back through town to our car and home again.  I know that for some,  all of the friendly, family type atmosphere would be an uncomfortable and stifling thing.  For Mountain Man and me, this is exactly what we need at this point in our lives.  The only thing that could make this life any better would be to have all of our chillin and grands here with us.   That is not to be at this point so we will make the most of our visits to Ohio and Florida and make the most of their visits here with us. We know now, after only one visit back to Ohio that in these mountains, we are exactly where we belong... we are home!

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, the classic beautiful ballad by the Platters comes to mind every time we step out our cabin door lately.  The forest fire that started a month ago in the Chattahoochee National Forest with a single bolt of lightening has now burned over 21,000 acres of land and is only 20% contained. They don't expect to have them totally controlled for at least 2 to 4 weeks yet if we don't get any considerable amounts of rain.  Since that first fire started, there have been many other fires that have also taken off.  Unfortunately,  they are finding that some of the more recent fires that have started have been set by obviously deranged people.  Thank goodness, they have already found a few of these criminals.  I know that forest fires can be a cleansing thing to happen to forest land- burning up old dead wood and allowing new growth to come up from the forest floor fresh and new.  I understand that,  and I don't have a problem with it as long as the fires are able to be contained inside the boundaries of the forest and not have any ill effects on any homes in the area.  My only problem at this point is breathing the sooty and smelly air that is constantly surrounding us and our entire town.  Since we don't have a garage at our cabin, my car and Mountain Man's truck are constantly covered in a layer of gray powdery soot.  Not good for the lungs!  Since the smoke is getting heavier and more consistantly in our area, Mountain Man went to the local big box store and got us some masks to wear.  I must admit, it's not  a very becoming style, but it does make breathing a bit easier!

As with most tragedies and catastrophies, there is always a bright side.  The bright side in this story is the outpouring of love and generosity that is coming from ours and all of the other surrounding communities.  We have firefighting teams from all around the country and Puerto Rico,  Sky Crane Helicopters with their flight and mechanic teams, and tanker airplanes with their crews that have all come here to help us control and extinguish the fires.  Even though most of these heros are being compensated for their time spent here working on these fires, there are also countless numbers of volunteer firefighters that are actually taking time away from their full time jobs so they can be here to help.  All of the communities that are being affected by the fires are so grateful to all of these people that the local restaurants are providing free meals, people have been preparing food and bringing it to the fire departments, collecting water, toiletries and other necessary items to keep these firefighters as healthy and comfortable as possible while working on these wild fires.  To be a part of and a witness to this southern hospitality makes me proud of my community and happy to be a resident of Georgia.

As I mentioned in the last paragraph, there has been a Sky Crane Helicopter, which is equipped with a snorkle to suck up 3,000 gallons of water in 45 seconds that can then be dumped on the fires, stationed at our local airport.  This past Sunday, Mountain Man and I were making a trip the Walmart to pick up a few things.  The road that leads to the Walmart passes by the end of the runway.  We could see that the helicopter was there as we drove by so on our way home we decided to stop in at the airport and see if we could meet crew and thank them for risking their lives to save our forest.  We pulled up to the operations center at the airport and Mountain Man went in to ask if we could meet the crew.  I am still not totally used to small town living, the operations manager at the airport told us to go ahead and drive across the runway to see the copter and the crew!  Yes, you read right, drive across the runway.  Well, he did tell us to be sure to look both ways for landing planes!  Good enough for us, off we drove across the runway.  When we got to the other side,  the copter and crew were all just hanging out waiting for their next call.  We were able to have a nice visit with the whole crew and much to Mountain Man's delight, he was able to cross another thing off of his bucket list. He not only got to get his picture taken in front of the giant flying machine, but he also was able to get up inside of it and have the captain give him a lesson in how to start up and fly the big bird.  Needless to say, it was one of the great highlights of recent times for my Mountain Man.  To be able to watch him getting to experience something that brings him such joy and to see his childlike awe brings me such great joy, there are just no words.

So, until next week, wash your cars, clean your windows, forget your umbrellas, do a rain dance and most of all, pray for rain!