And Life Goes On

I had decided at some point, losing Jess would be a bookend in our life.  A thing we can forever put 'before' and 'after' around.  Instead, it's more of a turning of the page to a new chapter.  Life isn't neat enough to give you many definites, it's a messy and disorganized business.

Ben has turned 18.  In a move that would shock my own mother, I have managed to keep them all alive until adulthood.  I had my only hesitation of the year when he and Chan took off on the afternoon of his birthday to navigate the Interstate together.  He wasn't born until after 9 p.m.  That little voice threw out a what if.  Oh, little voice!  I wish I could smash you into a paste and spread you out in the summer sun until you were dry and crackled and eventually blew away.

We are getting the new roof put on, waiting for the materials to be delivered.  Estimates have ranged from 'OMG' to 'WTF'.  I had no idea a simple metal roof on a fairly small and uncomplicated house could run $12,000.  I'm talking galvalume, like on a barn.  Not hand polished bronze here.  They cut it AT the factory, they only have to slap it up there and screw it down.  DANG.  We had to get a loan for it, even going the cheapest route possible.  Well, not cheapest.  I did get the 50-year warranty stuff.  I don't want to even think about that roof again.  Other than "ooh, shiny!"

My father did a brief stint in the hospital after having a stroke.  He's checked out all clear, no damage or blockage or issues, no virus or anything they can detect that caused it after the fact.  Despite being 79 and never having taken the first round of medicine (other than for colds, no doubt) he's on a daily blood pressure medication as there was a spike in his BP just after and his, like mine, is usually quite low.

We have started a new family project, well, South Cumberland has started a new project headed up by everyone's favorite park ranger Park.  Matt took the kids and Alex up today for the groundbreaking.  I wanted to go, but Daddy was still in the hospital and I was on backup Butterbean duty.  You remember Butterbean-my Maltipoo nemesis brother?  I was the favorite for 40 years.  Then Daddy got Butterbean.  He has 900-to-1 photos of that dog over childhood photos of me.

Anyway, the project is one I have been yammering about for 3 years, it's the reconstruction of the old CCC cabins and building!  I've done a ton of research, I am really excited about the whole thing and hate I missed the FIRST DAY of the project.  But there are years of it ahead of us, I doubt it will be done soon.

The state elected a Democrat to Congress.  I'm still not even sure what to say beyond Yippee!

Ben's Christmas concert is Monday, then the next week Matt will have a few days off for the holiday, then it will be a new year. 

I've taken no photos, done no new hikes just the same old routes I have walked a hundred times if I've even bothered to leave the house at all.  It's all been routine-running the errands I have always run, taking Ben to music and picking him up, getting dog food, cat food, more toilet paper, time for another oil change.  I feel mired in it all, ready for something else.  Ready for a new chapter. 

Crusty

That's the best word to use to describe the current situation around here.

In the last week or so, the humans have all come down with some variation of the common cold and Jessie has done an amazing rebound and returned to life.  It's been amazing to see, first she perked up a bit, then quite a bit, now she's trotting and hopping and seemingly just fine.  After her collapse, I never imagined she'd bounce back.

It snowed yesterday for nearly 15 straight minutes.  Matt picked up milk, bread and eggs because we were legit out of all 3, but it was still pretty funny.  He mixed it up with some veggie eggrolls though.
Wednesday or Thursday, I woke up feeling like there was an entire pencil inside my ear canal.  My chest was achy and my nose was doing that WTF thing where just one nostril works at a time.  The other leaks at the rate of one tissue per 5 minutes.  Throat was a little sore, but the drainage knocked my range of speech to creepy level 3.  I sounded like a rusted man.  When Chan had this last week, when she talked it sounded like 2 people talking it once.  It was SO scary. It does not seem scary, but your child in stereo, with one voice a little lower than the other, is VERY creepy.  Suck in air and talk.  It was very much like that.

While it only snowed a dusting here, the schools were closed. We get made fun of ALL the time for shutting down when it snows at all, but the basis of that decision is made with the thought of little kids waiting for the bus in the early hours.  Many, many people here don't have a good coat.  So, make fun if you want, but next time it's sleeting, go stand by your mailbox before the sun comes up in a sweater and jeans for 20 minutes.  Not everybody's mama can drive them to school.

A couple snaps from the snow.

Kuma was having a blast until I pointed the camera at him.
I go back and forth with wondering if he dies via photograph if he would be vindicated for his lifetime of wariness or if his last thoughts would be of horror because-clicky thing, aaaaaaaa

I have slept a good 4 to 6 hours total in the last 2 nights thanks to, and I will say it, MATT.  And my cold, but mostly my adored hubby who walks in his sleep and makes the bed wiggle.  Move to the couch, you suggest?  I can't fall asleep easily in other places, even the next room.  So all that netted was nearly 4 hour of laying there without the bed wiggling.  I am the most exhausted light sleeper in the world.  I'll just stay awake if there's the slightest chance I could be woken up.  Plus, the living room is COLD with it's single (who planned that?) heat vent directly over the front door.

When I finally did fall asleep last night, I woke up today with my nose crusted TO THE PILLOW.  It cracked loose when I tried to roll over.  Matt took one look and ran for the medicine cabinet, though 2 Sudafed and a Tylenol cold and congestion dose later, I feel NO BETTER.

To that end, I have decided to withdraw some from life and to celebrate, I unfriended the worst of the Trumpers still on my FB feed.  There's supporting your party, there's hoping for the best, then at some point, it becomes a combination of willful ignorance and 'someone said'.  And hate.

I typed way, way, way more and then deleted it because it was unkind.  See?  I am getting better. ish.  I still can't stand a hate spewing idiot particularly and I do mean this-when they are a hypocrite.  People can see when you say one thing and do another.  I'm just done with observing and ready to call people out.  Or, in this case, cut them loose.  Some people are too far gone to fix.

Okay, I think I am wound down.

This weekend is a bust, though Matt is off at the studio and Jake and Chan are going to town.  Ben is still puny.

Next week, there are plans for backpacking Friday because while it's 19 right now, it will be 70 a week from now.  Aaaaaand, no wonder we all have colds.  Various other things scattered in the week, just have to see how this cold is going.

17 words from being level 4 in Swedish.  I really wish I could find someone who can speak it, so I can ask some questions particularly about pronunciation.  Only 2 more levels and I will be proficient.  I have started reading a few things.  Children's books, short articles online, a few blogs.  I need a LOT more words to fill in the gaps, but I can piece together pretty well by guessing the unknown words based on context.  I doubt I will ever be able to write or speak my own thoughts without more training in stitching the words.   Some sentences are word for word.  Han ar trott, sa han vill stanna hemma.  He is tired, so he will stay home.  But then "I will be home at 4" is 'Jag ar hemma clockan fyra" 'I am home clock four.'.

I have a feeling it's similar to English rules, like using I or me, or a or an and once I figure it out, it will all be more simple.  

Not a Year in Review

I usually do a year in review, but this has been a different kind of year.

We did travel, LOADS of travel, out west twice and to Virginia twice to see the ponies. 22 states.  It's been a year for 2, I guess.

I started a couple things I will likely keep up in the new year.  One is learning Swedish. I am just shy of level 4, about 1500 words.  I am still flat amazed that I can remember even half, but I did a 300 word quiz on Tuesday and only missed 3.  That's a 99, or, as Chan would have once graded her own paper: an A++

The other is book reviews and listing what I read.  Not all of it, I have read some books so crappy that going BACK over it in my mind afterward would be like raking nails on my mental blackboard.  But it's been good for the brain.  With just Ben left homeschooling and him doing nearly all his own work now, I have less mental stimulation than I'd like.  It's been good for the old noggin to get some use.

I did not hike 1000 miles this year, and I am a night short of camping 30 nights.  So, neither of those happened.  But, I did work toward my goals which is more than I can say for myself some years.  Ha!

Okay, I guess I did a review.

For 2017, I have (surprise) hikes planned with friends old and new.  I am ending the year with 35 new FB friends. I'll eventually freak and unfriend half or more, but they are local (in the state anyway) and like to hike so I will see how that goes.  I need something to focus on with the kids getting older and finding people who are active seems like a better idea than some I have had.

I am planning to start the AT in April, no plan to finish it, though there's this little back-of-my-head voice that sometimes cheerfully pipes in with 'but we COULD'.  Yeah.  Right NOW the plan is to hike to the Smokies, though I have to say hiking to Hot Springs is appealing and I really want to do all of VA.  Maybe half this year?  I'll start with the first 167 miles and see.  Baby steps.

No other big travel plans yet.  Matt wants to do a long trip in the summer, J has stirred up my interest about a visit, Ben will graduate in the spring and that will change a good bit.  So lots of potentials, which is good for a new year.

Impending Doom, Things in Bloom

Ah, the storms are on the way.  The chicken houses across the road smell HORRIBLE, the wind is whipping around that stench, can't even breathe out there today. I plugged my nose and ran for the mail.  UGH. Nasty, nasty, nasty.  It smells like yeast mixed with the poop.  The first batch were grown and gone in 6 weeks and he took 2 weeks off between.  They come get them just after midnight and rev and back up the trucks once every 30 seconds, it's LOUD, took 2 nights and is yet another shining example of what a HUGE shithead the guy is.  It's not enough to befoul (literally) the very air we breathe, he's got to throw in noisy nights as well.

The wind is up and everything is whipping around.  The huge pine that looms over the bedroom is scraping along the roof when the wind hits just right.  It's not straight on, it's swirly.  It poured for about 15 seconds and managed to get the whole porch wet, so it must be raining sideways!

It's Groundhog Day, so I fed the cats and moved some firewood.  The traditional GD activities.  Later, I will walk on the treadmill because it keeps raining and then sunning outside and I don't want to go for a walk and end up in Oz.  

This is the type of weather that gets me hyped up for about half an hour, then I just want to sleep. Or...maybe that's the crash because it's 2 in the afternoon and I've only had a protein bar and about 20 sugar snap peas all day.  I'm eating jerky now, that should totally fix it.  No, wait.  Okay, now I am all better.  We made Julilanne taters with cheese.  1 box or the dehydrated kind weighs 4 ounces and has 4 servings, which is good, but it takes too long to cook to make it good for backpacking.  

These are the things in bloom/being green in the yard, February 2, 2016

Kuma is very against having his photo taken.

We have been eating this (spiderwort) and dandelion and of course sorrel.
Love some greens this time of year, I CRAVE them, I started buying spinach in big bundles so I can have it every single day, I just throw it in soup or eat it raw or toss it in a pan with some butter and wilt it to go on anything else I happen to be eating. I figure there's something I need in there, the way my tummy yells for greeeeeens. 

Dinking Around, Solstice and Severe Weather

Today, while awaiting the severe weather, I spent some time making sure the cats (in the shed) had food and water and got their winter boxes all set up.  I think something happened to Wonder, she's not been coming up for food lately.  I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks.  :(

On the porch, I made sure Jess and Kuma stay dry in their new super cozy bed (it's HUGE!) by putting a tarp for a few days while it's so misty and blowy.

I dusted a while, pulled down webs, put up curtains, washed bedding, swept and vacuumed, washed the windows and scrubbed the bathrooms.  Then it was time to do nothing!

Then I got bored and started playing with photo effects as seen below:

I am easily amused!!

In other news, no tornado ate us this afternoon, but it did get miserably humid and quite warm, so I turned on the AC for about an hour.  It's been a weird autumn for sure, and now winter is here and it's...still in the 70's.  I hope that doesn't mean it's going to be 12 for January-March.  UGH

Just before the sun came up  That's Ben down there.

The treehouse and lanterns.  :)

SUNRISE!

An hour or so later

Our new baby, Zola.
Not OURS, Amanda's.  But I am still going to spoil her because-baby.

And another hour later.

By 11:30 or so, it was even thicker than this, so we gave up on any sort of clearing off and headed to meet Matt for lunch, and got groceries.  It was all clear in the valley, but just as foggy back home on our mountain.  So the clouds were sitting at about 1500 feet is my professional guess.

Hoping for a peaceful enough night with the weather still not through the area.

Snowmageddon 2015

Matt went to work Tuesday and was so pathetic that Wednesday his boss called and told him to run some reports from home and charge it as a work day.  Basically, "Don't come in you cesspool".  So there's that, I guess.

He did his work stuff and Jake and I ran a couple quick errands ahead of the forecasted snow-the governor declared a state of emergency before anything ever happened and schools let out all over the northern half of the state.

While in the line at Little Caesar's (I really needed chewy breadsticks) the snow started.  By the time we got home, we were the only idiots on the road, yay!

It snowed about 5.5 inches Wednesday afternoon and another couple inches overnight.  Our yard tests this morning showed anywhere from 7 to 8.5 inches, it's already melting off in places.  It does not last long around here!

In Huntsville, they already have the roads cleared but here, they are just saying to stay home.  The sheriff sweetened the deal by offering tickets to anyone who does venture out.  Last night several semis got stuck out on the road and then so did the trucks that went to pull them out.  For some reason, that cracked me up, though I imagine no one directly involved was amused at all.

I can see trucks going by on the main road now and then, but not even the mail truck has turned down the driveway.  That is not surprising, there are whole days we get skipped even when the weather is good.  Last Saturday is a prime example.  *gripe gripe*

I made snow cream with maple syrup and Ben and Chan are rolling up half the yard into giant leafy snowmen.  Jake is staying in bed all day, his capacity for fun is zero point zero.

The above was taken really late last night, I liked that it was so blurry.

Early this morning

Up through the limbs of the big pine in back.

It's melting so fast!  The sun is SO warm, I put on sunscreen and sat out on the porch a while.
The kids are in, shoveling down snowcream and talking loudly while the cheddar broccoli soup finishes cooking.  We'll enjoy our one more day of being all at home, maybe have a nap this afternoon.  There's enough wood for another couple of days and the house is toasty.  Everyone is feeling better, if not 100% then functional anyway.

We have a busy weekend ahead and if the weather dries out, a camping trip starting a week from today.  Now that the winter has had this last hoorah, I imagine spring will bustle in and take over PDQ.  I still have not heard my peepers!

East Bee Branch Falls and The Big Tree

 Friday we decided to go someplace new.  Amanda and I had talked about tackling the hike to the Big Tree over in Sipsey, so I had been reading about it and checking my maps.  I found a book at the library-50 Hikes in Alabama by Johnny Molloy and the 3rd hike in there was the Big Tree.  He laid out the route step by step, so I decided that was our best bet after my last plunge into the Wilderness without a clear plan ended with the arrival of a wide swath of water.  I knew fording was not optional with the littles along, not to mention it's COLD.

Before we headed out, I baked traveling cookies.  These are so moist that they don't crumble in your pack.

And there's no gluten.

3 bananas all mashed up

2 cups whole oats

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup almond milk

vanilla and cinnamon

I added chocolate and peanut butter chips to one batch and flax and hemp seeds and dried fruit to the other. Each batch makes 12 good sized cookies.  Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Armed with our cookies, we hit the trail, leaving out from the Borden Creek trailhead.  It's been redone since our last visit, parking is limited to way the heck up the hill from the old bridge, there's a gate and signs and everything.  We headed out knowing it was a 10 mile hike, so that first bit downhill was quickly forgotten. On the way out...gah!!!  The parking area moved uphill another 1/4 mile at least.  Plus the hill was steeper.

THE TRACK LOG

Borden Creek!

Rho, Chan, Eyrin

The path was crazy overgrown until recently, so there are stobs and little stumps ALL over the place.  We watched our feet 97% of the way.

From the bridge, we stayed on old CR 5, which is now called 224/Bunyan Hill Trail.

It climbs out of the valley over about a half a mile with a climb of 150 feet.

It turns into the above for 4 miles.  A tunnel in the pines.  The trail undulates over the miles, but never more than 50 feet up or down, it seems fairly flat.  It is easy walking, just long.

The junction to trail 204 is clearly marked with a sign.  We headed off down that way and less than a mile in, the trail splits.  There is a sign that says 204 and that's all.  No arrow!  You take the right fork (204 A on the map)-the left is 204 which misses the tree canyon entirely!

After the close pines the whole way, the open ridge was very nice!

this tree is mentioned in the guide book.

At the 204/204A junction, a group came up behind us.  We stepped off to make room and they stopped to chat a moment.  I realized-I knew them!  It was Jamie and Rachel from theater.  His girlfriend and parents were along as well, that was bizarre to run into someone we knew out there.

They headed off to explore the canyon, we saw them most of the rest of the afternoon as the canyon is teeny! In fact, Nia and Juke sidled up to their picnic on the rock just in case they hauled in too much food.

Nearly identical shots of East Bee Branch Falls from the top.

I thought I could get a better sense of scale, but...well, I think I just got twin shots.

The trail to the canyon was nearly flat, but getting to the falls overlook and then on into the small canyon required some scrambling and careful navigation.  Amanda opted to stay at the top with Bird while Sammy headed down with Eyrin.  The kids just ran amok.

THE BIG TREE!!!

East Bee Branch Falls

I wondered why the two sights are always lumped together as 'East Bee Branch Falls and the Big Tree'.  Then I went to see them and realized, it's because they are about 30 feet apart.

I love the green in the canyons.

This is an unnamed falls just down from Bee Branch.  You can see it from the tree, too.

See, here it is below, directly behind where I was standing.

More shots, this time with panorama because I could not get it all in one frame.

Turns out, it did not all fit in two frames, either.

Three Frames for the Win!

I put henna in my hair.  It's red now.

I was not actually expecting that to happen.

Above Matt's head is the tree and below the BIG tree is Sammy, smoking a pipe and regarding Nia who has taken up log walking.

I attempt a Chanorama.  She uses the panorama feature on the camera to take unrelated photos and they stick together.  This is the unnamed falls and 180 degrees away, the Big Tree.

Look what I spotted!

A heart-shaped lichen.  I was delighted.

Heading back out.

One more shot of the Tree.

The canyon trail

A final rimshot (be-dunk-bunk! TING!)

Riding Boy!

The trail back was long.  Seriously, it's been a while since I walked that far.  But the 6 year old walked the whole way, which according to the GPS was 12.6 miles by the time we got back to the van.  It took us 6.5 hours total.  I am still a little amazed.

I arrived ahead of the other adults and when I got JUST past here, the kids screamed and Jake came FLYING at me and Rho went tearing off the other way.  Nia had jumped in the creek and they were running down to man each bank in case she did not make it against the current.  She swam out and then headed back (with Juke in tow) to do it again.  I quit watching, that dog is going to give me angina.

"I'll just jump in there" is the first thing any rational mammal would think.

We headed down 200 to the first campsite and set up a lovely fire to hang out and have dinner and chat a while before heading home.  We gathered wood and got it all ready to go (Sammy had the fire starter) and just as he and Amanda showed up, it started sprinkling!  Eee.

We immediately began to regard the much-anticipated hot dog dinner with some skepticism and a certain Mexican restaurant back in town was recalled.  So, we stowed our gear and made the final (much longer than it should have been) climb out to the cars.  Birdie had had a nap and was in fine spirits riding in his wrap.  He talked about allllll the trucks he's loved like a blue eyed magpie and when Amanda set him down to get things squared away to head out he said, "Matt!  Guess what!?  I am going to eat Mezigan food!"  That mass of fluffy hair and his little tipped-up face and wide grin, he is a balm for achy hearts.  Matt just said today that he and Eyrin and Inde have been so good for us to be around.  I have to agree.  We are lucky.

This was an awesome tally-4 days worth of steps in one day!