Sometimes you just have to laugh. 

I asked Blake to take this picture of us as we headed off to church. I am actually rather bitter my car is having to be parked at the bottom of our hill. During the dry months it has a hard time making the steep rocky climb. The rocks just roll and it beats my car to death. I broke the connector from the battery to the car a few weeks ago during the jostling climb. So I decided to save the car and park at the bottom. The four-wheeler is our transport back and forth. Fun (funny) for now, but it's getting old very quickly. 

My daughter was in a 4-wheeler accident 2 days ago. I am every so grateful that her injuries are only a fractured jaw, a few stitches, scrapes and bruises. These will mend. It has made me count my many, many blessings.

Evans Cemetery Decoration

The Evans Cemetery is tucked away up here. So far that the county has to be called out most years just before decoration to smooth the road so cars can cross the creek. I think it is a jewel. 

Decoration is every 4^th Sunday in June (or last Sunday, I can’t ever get this straight) and it has become an important part of our summer.

Decoration, called Homecoming in Texas, is both titles rolled into one. A time for friends and family to gather together, remember loved ones, eat, decorate graves, and eat, wait… did I say that already?

Savannah and 1/2 of the twins.

Savannah, Nieces, and the cutest/only red-headed twins you've ever seen.

Silas before the crowd arrived.

Silas after the cemetery filled with people.

Tooter's Tombstone

Telling stories and showing off scars.

I hope to be laid to rest here. 

How do mountain men entertain themselves on a summer Saturday afternoon?

 With spitting contests,

yanking out root balls, rocks and anything that the wrench can wrap itself around, and cooling off in the creek.

Bringing a little outside in

Black Eyed Susans, Daylilies, and New Potatoes
Savannah has decided daylilies will be in her wedding bouquet. 

 This past year of school had me functioning at full capacity. Therefore, I am taking full advantage of our swimming hole this summer. If "Therapy Hole" wasn't already a name of another swimming hole on the Little Mulberry I'd claim it for ours. 

 On a completely different note: Rising gas prices have us all considering other transportation methods and we must take into consideration the many miles of dirt road. My brother's solution is a dual-purpose bike. He brought it home today and the kids had a ride. Their first on a 2 wheeler. 

Donkey Basketball

I believe the first time I heard of donkey basketball, I was a child in East Texas. We didn’t, however, attend the game. Therefore my idea of this crazy concept was an image of a sketched poster depicting a man riding a donkey with a basketball and an imaginative guess at just how exactly one does play donkey basketball.  Of course when I discovered St. Paul was to have a game in their high school gym a few weeks ago. I was determined to experience this unique occurrence

As far as I can tell, the players were expected to be mounted while shooting for a basket and to have the reins in hand to pass the ball along the court.

Snow Day

The mountain that stands between our home and town had a thin sheet of ice this morning. 

It was ever so thin, but ice nonetheless. I had to turn back and come home.

I could have spent the day catching up on house cleaning, laundry, homework, 

but I decided to enjoy my snow day by being out in the snow, or what was left of it.

Savannah and I set out to the back of our property where the cliff side meets the creek.

 The snow gently fell as we climbed and sometimes slid down to the creek. 

Our summer swimming hole. 

 Coon tracks

Lola in her winter coat. I can't wait for spring and a groomed dog.

Goodbye Snow

I wasn't an eye witness...

 I wasn't an eye witness to this, but I know exactly what happened.

You see, Lola is a pest. She bedevils everybody/thing. She pesters our rooster, our yard bunny Ben, us, and even Commander. We think that she and Commander have worked this out and he may actually enjoy the interaction. (I think he's lonely). But Lola doesn't know when to quit. It looks like she was pestering while he was trying to eat and the fence caught the kick. 

On another note. I found this beauty on a hike last week. 

Dried native hydrangea

This little piggy went to the...

...slaughter house. Out of necessity, I was in charge of getting the pig for our New Year's Eve Pig Roast. 

This was my first visit to a pig farm. It was apparent this operation was well run and tidy. But there's just no way to avoid the smell of pig. Thankfully Rex was able to ride to the farm with me and select the pig. He stood in the pig house for approximately 60 seconds, touching nothing and still he reeked when he got back into the truck. Holy cow, that stuff stinks! It was raining so I couldn't roll the window down. It may have been the first time I couldn't wait until Rex was far, far away. 

The above picture was the only time I planned to look at my little pig until it was slaughtered and cleaned. (These are new terms I learned this week.) But at the slaughter house I had to help with the cage as the handler grabbed the pig. He screamed in my ear, the pig, not the young man.  

 The next day I picked him up all cleaned and looking much more like food than a pet. He didn't really stink. 

 We smoked him on my brother's pit for an hour.

 Then transferred him to our neighbor's cooker.  

This is the 3rd time we've used this method. It's much like an oven. The pig is in a box and hot coals are placed on the lid.