building blocks

I went to Locally Grown Thursday afternoon (where spring is becoming evident = 170 orders) and Joe and Levi had their 'man time' - they headed to the Oconee River for a little fishin' with Max...

fresh crappie

our very clumsy click beetle

Max & Levi

the first trellis (of many) peas are up - staggering plantings about once a week - getting some real help in the garden...

new teeth

Levi's cutting his first molar - unlike his other teething experiences, where thankfully the only side effect was massive amounts of drool - this time the ONE most definite side effect is compulsive breastfeeding! - Dr. Sears says it's: "accelerated nursing for comfort"

International Breastfeeding Symbol - these are posted in many shops around Athens accompanied by "we support your right to breastfeed"

Shagbark Hickories & Cherrybark Oaks

It's closing in on two weeks since our last blog post & some of you may be beginning to wonder. Since it's inception 14 months ago, this has been our longest lag. Joe's been promising to catch up the last few days & just got too busy with school. He and Levi fell asleep together tonight, so I thought I'd enjoy the quiet late night - look thru our pics & catch the blog up.

Joe & Levi made a long road trip together & spent the weekend before last (15-16Mar) in Jennings, Florida (at the Burnam's). This is the second time Joe's taken Levi for a weekend trip by himself - I get a break home alone & the Burnam's get to spoil Levi. Joe makes out okay too - wonderful family time & this trip, got his first turkey of the season.


A nice bird on his grandfather's place - rock hill on the farm - opening day of the Florida turkey season. Back at home, I spent Saturday sewing inside - it was the day with all those tornadoes - though we barely got any rain at all - just crazy wind. Sunday I spruced up the garden & built my very first hoop house. I'm starting sunflowers, zinnias, & lettuce. My peas are up & look beautiful.


I've been hauling in loads of rotted/composted horse manure. Levi endured the entire day Monday - going back and forth in the truck with me - moving this black gold around - actually I love days like these - it was sunny & I feel great at the end of the day - dirty, & wonderfully tired from manual labor & results seen. We met up with Joe for some play at the end of the day...



Turkey camp - this past Saturday (22Mar) was the opening day of Georgia's turkey season. We always go down to Redland WMA - about 15 minutes south of our home & camp at Fishing Creek - Joe has come here for opening day the last 11 years - I think I've been here the last 8. The camp spot is right on the water. Turkey camp is a gathering of friends/families/hunters - we first were invited here by friends, the Tabeceks.




It's a little sad this year because this will probably be the last time - we'll probably have moved by this time next year - the hunting's not so good anymore & the times have changed. When we're here I always go out alone on the water - this to me is a place filled with memories - a reflection of the people I've shared this camp with - time as it passes on friendships, relationships, and marriages - new children arrive at the camp - families move - tales told around the campfire - Saturday naps - waiting for each hunter to return - shotguns & camo - how many birds in camp - catfish juggin' - night time drinking - afternoons soaking up sunlight on open water - and watching the wood ducks fly low in the evening - late geese honking - owls after dark - Shagbark Hickories & Cherrybark Oaks growing in rich soil.

This year was Levi's second year at turkey camp & his first time out on the water...

Paddlin' around in the old kayak -he was perfectly still - calm - we stayed close in to start with - then I took him a ways out - my water child! there may have to be a trip down the Buffalo for us soon! Later on Joe took him out in the big boat to check the catfish jugs - if you look close Levi is fast asleep!

Sean with some of the catch - and one enormous bowfin!

Chocolate milk time!!

Me and Munchie having a glass of chocolate milk, which he loves....surprise, surprise. He finished his first and ended up drinking (or backwashing, ahem) mine.

Pics from the Bday weekend

Jo & Mo

family

corner seat at the Globe - Greg & Carrie

stick tasting in the yard

Cindy

JB

Molly & Nicole - I need to make a gallery of these shots, nearly 12 years of friendship

silly Daddy

Turning 30 at Trapeze, champagne, family, friends

Sammy & Brian

contemplating sticks

30!

Ant Facts

• Army ants don't create traditional nests -- they bivouac at night in a protected place, creating a "nest" by connecting their own bodies to form a mass.
• There are an estimated 1,000 trillion ants living on the planet at any given moment, representing 11,800 known species.
• Ants inhabit almost every habitat on Earth -- including the stomachs of some frogs. In a tropical rainforest, ants can constitute up to 15 percent of the total animal biomass.
• Some ant species use tools and herd and "milk" other animals.
• Highly organized ant colonies can last for hundreds of years.

Lovely Breastfeeding Posters

Aren't these posters great! - from the Australian Breastfeeding Association. After talking to Angie, Australia sounds so ahead of the US in their promotion of breastfeeding - and the hospitals only provide cloth diapers! Compare that to our hospitals were women are sent home with Pampers & formula samples.

Mr. Man

A little update on Levi pants......He's Mr. Active!!!! We went grocery shopping last night. I took Levi in one Buggy while Mama got the goods in another. Levi flirted and gave every gal we passed his best 10 dollar smile....which of course resulted in them making crazy faces and sounds back at him. We had a trail of silliness following us through Publix. Oh yeah, I remember when I was a kid (last year ?) I'd get in trouble for touching everything on the aisles...well, there' two of us now who think that's pretty cool.

Other things....our new favorite game is to sit on the floor facing each other and roll the baseball back and forth. Most times when he throws it it comes my way...sometimes it sails off in random directions and hits innocent objects like Mama, Dachsunds, and plants. He's also a kisser these days. Those nice, sweet kisses of the wet and slimy kind, but hey! Nothing like your little one sitting up and kissing you on the cheek first thing in the morning.

LONG Ramblings, or Passage of Time by Chicken

Have you noticed the complete lack of picture postings lately? I don't know what it is but I just haven't picked up the camera in - well, I guess close to two weeks now (Mary Moses, is your camera in hand everyday?). Days speed by without a snap. My ramblings on here are more like an e-mail to Angie - thought of consciousness fragments.

There's a friggin' chicken in my refrigerator - it's been years since I bought chicken - literally, the last time I remember buying chicken was about four years ago - I bought three whole hens for a special feast. Okay, this may be another weird tangent - but prior to that, the last time I remember buying/preparing chicken was a camping trip Nick & I took to North Georgia - do you remember that Nick? It must have been '98. I put all this raw meat - beef & chicken - into my backpack & we ate like kings out in the middle of nowhere. Raw (warm) meat over a fire we built? I guess I didn't even think about raw meat just hanging out in my backpack like that - it didn't kill us, huh?

So why the hen in the cold box now? Thought I'd give Grandma's famous chicken mushroom saute a whirl. Though now that I'm thinking this out I'm not exactly sure - we went the "Green Wise" route - you know, no hormones, antibiotics, chickens have 'access to outside'... yada, yada. But does that really mean "happy chicken life"?... maybe, probably not.

I do believe eating conventionally-raised big business meat is unethical. The environmental side effects of such large scale 'meat factories' are substantial. Know anything about the big business meat industry these days? - acres and acres of animals in cramped conditions. Do some real research - you'd never want to touch the stuff again. Enough of that, depresses me... off my soapbox. I let my consumer dollars do the talking - the meat industry would not exist if they depended on me... I'd just to have to kill my own chicken once every couple years.

And WHY am I up at THREE AM writing about THIS? Who the hell knows.