Greenhouse 3

A Rabbit's Foot fern that just about died on me. A good friend gave it to me (and she had won a state fair prize for it). It caught up in all of the family sickness and just about died, but it is coming back nicely. Thank goodness.






Tomato plants growing and in bloom in March. The kids are looking over this for me, hopefully they will let me know that we have small tomatoes by now. Greenhouse 4 is coming up!

Greenhouse 2

A fairly good picture of the crown of thorns. There's a couple of Century plants behind them.
This is the succulent I'm not sure what the name is. It is part of the plants left to me.

The small rose's in the white pot and the pot with the label on it I started from cuttings.
This is the parent jade plant in the Jack Daniel's crock. Probably why it's done so well!

The rubber tree to the right of it, is 15 years old. I couldn't find any cord strong enough to tie it up when I cut it back, so electrical tape to the rescue.





Here's one of the geraniums just starting out this year. Greenhouse 3 is next.

Greenhouse

I've been asked a couple of times about my greenhouse and here are just a few pictures. You can see where we have taken the liberty of fixing any storm damage to the glass panes with that old standby, duct tape. It's been temporary for a couple of years now.This isn't a very large greenhouse, but it is fun.
We are still at the campground between Cherokee, AL and Iuka, MS (and, as the local residents have made sure we know, you say the I and the U in IUKA). This seems to be important to them, but I digress. The point of this is that the internet connection here is not fantastic, even with the external antenna and repeater.
Verizon, as I have told their customer service department, we cannot hear you now. That, also is something the local residents seem to be a bit upset about. Customer service offered to refund my money if I needed to change carriers, not exactly how their commercials sound.
At any rate, all of the pictures do not seem to be uploading. There's pictures of the inside. Allen has built me a potting table. I have some really old cacti and a Jade plant. Allen's sister's mother-in-law gave them to me many years ago.


Here, you can see some of the Jade plants, wandering Jew, I'm not sure what the succulant in the middle is. I'm going to try publishing another blog with a few more pictures of the inside. Guess I'll call it Greenhouse 2.

Norma's Retirement Bonus

Well, I have always loved boating, but did not like the bass boat that Allen has had for years. I came down to the fish camp with him this year and decided that what I wanted was a boat that both of us could enjoy, figured up the bonus money and the result was a Kenner Vision 1800, with a Suzuki 115 4-stroke motor, shown in the pictures. (Of course, I have a Lowrance 520c iGPS on it!) We've had it two days and we're both thrilled with it. Drives great, ride is even better. Both of us can stand up at the same time. We can take it down to Gulf Shores/Pensacola with us. The pictures were taken from our camp site and you can see Big Bear Creek through the woods.
The better Allen feels, the more I'm enjoying retirement. So far, I highly recommend it - retirement that is.
We are planning an Alaska trip in July if the doctor's release Allen for it and I see no reason they won't. We won't haul the boat, but expect to have a wonderful time. One of my friends that also just retired had everything mapped out on Google Earth (and since his son loves Wendy's, I know where every Wendy's in the US is I believe :-) )
Mostly wanted everyone to know we're still alive and well, having a great time, and if you don't hear from me much, it is because of limited bandwidth.

8 March 08 Snowfall in North Alabama

A little bit better picture. If you look REALLY hard, there is a cardinal on the feeder. This is an upside down entry, the earlier post is on the bottom.

Since measurable snowfall is so unusual in the Tennessee Valley, I took a few pictures while it was still dark (only these two turned out OK). Anyway, I could have waited, it is actually still snowing our. It will be gone soon however.
According to the newspaper, this is the first measurable March snowfall since 1996, so that made it worthy of a couple of pictures at least.
It will melt in a little while, and we'll be able to talk of the snowfall of 2008 for a while.

Prospect TN Walk

Yesterday was a very good day for a hike, so we decided that we would go to the land in Prospect, TN has been in my family (James) for several generations. This land borders on the Elk River (huge bluff from our land to the river though) and is a great place for deer and turkey hunting. Just ask my family of hunters, they will tell you so. The boundaries are marked really well, except for one portion that is particularly hilly, rocky, etc., so we decided to look for the old fence and mark as much as we could of that border, so we took off on our quest.
We did pretty well, we naturally had to move a bit slow; but the terrain is such, that poor health or not, you would have to move slow. Tracing the old barb wire fence through the brown leaves, etc., was not the easiest job in the world - it was fun. A few of the trees had grown around the wire and it was sort of strange to see a tree a foot or more in diameter with barbed wire coming out of the middle of it. The power company, many years ago, cut through a swath for their power lines and cut through the fence for a good chunk. We'll have to go another day and try to mark from the power lines down to the river and that's good. An excuse for another outing!
I took a few pictures of our walk and they are posted here if you care to see them. My favorite is the one posted above - serenity!

EVDO Setup Test in Near Future

Doctors' have said it is OK for Allen to go on his yearly camping/fishing trip and I'll go this year for part of it anyway. This will be a good test for my internet setup - if it will work down there, it will be declared a success for mobile use also.

This park is located on the AL/MS border on the river. To get cell service, you need to stand on tip toes, facing East, chanting mystical rhymes, and holding your breath. Link to map of area.

The external magnetic field antenna made it possible to get a cell signal if connected to it, so I have high hopes for the antenna/repeater setup. We'll see. Wish me luck.