Happy Thanksgiving!

T-minus three hours before the trip begins home to Wildwood! We're already packed & the bags are by the door (this is a first, as the bag packing usually begins around the actual time we are suppose to be leaving).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING (a day early)!

National Day of Listening

I get a vast majority of my news by listening to National Public Radio (I do little TV watching). And in the AM I always tune into Morning Edition - every Friday on the show there's a segment dedicated to StoryCorps. I always get choked up listening to the stories that are shared!

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. Since 2003, tens of thousands of everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, creating a growing portrait of who we really are as Americans.

StoryCorps is encourages people to start a new holiday tradition & celebrate the National Day of Listening on Friday November 28th, the day after Thanksgiving. Sit down with a loved one and record a meaningful conversation.

I've got our cam corder all ready!

Gypsy Soup

In the fall of 1998, Joe and I moved into an old rambling house with about 10 other college students - we needed a "cheap & by the month" sorta place = we were saving cash to hike the AT the following spring - at $100 a month this was perfect & we even got our own private bath - it was a bizarre houseful of folks (to say the least) - night or day there was always something going on...

In the kitchen pantry I found an abandoned copy of Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook (which I still have today) - I don't remember the details of my early encounters with this cookbook or when I first made it, but one of the lasting recipes I still whip up on a monthly basis is Gypsy Soup - it's a delicately spiced Spanish-styled vegetable soup (that's very versatile, one of those perfect recipes for clearing out random veggies from your Frigidaire) - the herbs & spices make a lovely combination of colors:

tumeric, dried basil, cinnamon, cayenne, paprika, & a bay leaf

Savannah Recycling!

Savannah - Chatham county will begin curbside recycling pickup this January! Yipee! The yellow & black recycling carts have started being distributed - check out this local write-up: City launches recycling program. Now I just wish Richmond Hill - Bryan county would wake up!

Exploring

These are some pics from my new little honeyhole. One of the things I was most looking forward to about moving down here was having hundreds of thousands of acres and two new rivers to learn and explore. After living near Redlands WMA and the Oconee National Forest for so many years, I knew most every river bend, ridge, beaver pond, and pine thicket on the place. Well...here I don't, and learning new country is a blast. While known woods are a comfort, like an old friend, sometimes meeting new woods is pretty entertaining in its own right. It's really just getting to explore and run around wild-eyed like I did as a kid. Like I guess I never really quit doing. The only thing missing is a BB-gun, belt hatchet, and a little white dog named Sugar.

These are pics of the island I've been hunting. So far I haven't seen a soul, and really don't expect to. It's a river island....accessible only by boat, and maybe 300 acres in size. Though its fresh water, its still influenced by the tide which can make for an easy paddle if you time it right. Because I could find no name for the island on any map, I'm calling it Turtle Shell Island for a yellowbelly slider shell I found at the base of a big Tupelo. And also just because I can.

Paddling in.....

The view from the kayak

A water oak and palmetto flat. The majority of the island is wet and covered with Tupelo, Ogeechee lime, and cypress. However, a slight one or two foot increase in elevation completely changes the species assemblage and you get oaks, a few hickories, palmetto, and switch cane. Every critter in the area uses these areas heavily.

In search of deer and pigs

Several creek channels cut their way through...this is one near an area I frequently hunt. The wood ducks pile in here.....

This cypress is hollow and inhabited by some lucky critter, probably a coon. The inside base of the tree was worn down to bare dirt. The pictures don't help with scale, but that opening is over 4 feet tall!

I was slip-hunting along the ground one morning and eased up on these pigs. I stopped at 25 yards to keep from spooking them. I didn't want to kill one, because I had just taken a nice one a few days earlier and really wanted a deer. And also because dragging a pig out is, well...a drag. They kept feeding my way so I eased the phone out for a pic at 10 yards or so. Then another pic at 3 feet or so....then I forgot about pics. The porker was just about sniffing my boot when he finally decided I wasn't a tree. Pigs aren't known for graceful exits, and he was certainly not fluid in taking his leave. There were two cypress knees growing about a foot apart and about three feet tall. In his "haste" he ran between them and got stuck. So I'm standing there in shock while a 50 lb. wild hog is stuck between two roots 3 feet from my boot. The other hogs were a wee bit confused as well. Kilgo wrote that dragging a pig is good therapy. Watching them act the fool is pretty good, too. :-)

This ones a wee bit fuzzier. And closer.

Fever

Levi developed a case of pink eye while in Athens & thus, we've spent the last days battling this ailment (and the accompanying fever). Although I know fever is beneficial in aiding the body to fight infections, and that children can weather high temps much better than adults, I always seem to seek out 'fever literature' to reassure myself during times of illness (and our recent 104+ temps). Some of the facts:

• The elevation in body temperature makes it difficult for viruses and bacteria to grow.
• Fever stimulates the body to produce infection-fighting white blood cells.
• Many health care providers recommend using medication only to make the child more comfortable. How sick your child looks and acts is much more important than the level of the fever.
• A fever above 107 is considered harmful.
• The goal for using medications should not be to bring the temp down to normal ranges.
• The body has built in safeguards that prevent most fevers from getting dangerously high.
  

Why today rocks...

It is a lovely morning because:

• My child slept thru the night! we all got around 7 hours continuous sleep! (we are night weening and have had 16 nights of tantrums - we are still nursing during the day, and probably will for awhile...)
• The elections are over! = no more commercials/signs. Plus I think the results are fabulous!
• We are traveling back to Athens this weekend for the first time since moving in August. I get to visit Nicole & Carrie! Plus, I'll be back at the old house to empty our storage building (all the stuff I had to abandon at the end because we were out of room, this has been a nagging thought in the back of my mind for weeks).
• The ignition issue is being fixed on the Pathfinder - it's at the shop today!
• Angie will be back stateside on Saturday (after nearly 3 years in Tasmania)!
• Levi is making great progress in potty training - now consistently letting us know when he's gotta go.
• Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which means I get to go home to Wildwood!
  
• I'm finally settled into this new life on the coast, making an array of new friends, & feel happy again :)
  

Go Vote!!

We actually waited till the day of & were in & out in about 15 minutes. Our polling place is just a walk around the corner from our home - the rec center gym.

I really wanted Clinton for prez = universal health care is very important to me + how could staunchly feminist me not want a woman to lead this country?

The writer Andre Gide relates this experience of a trip he took into the Belgian Congo:

My party had been pushing ahead at a fast pace for a number of days, and one morning when we were ready to set out, our native bearers, who carried the food and equipment, were found sitting about without any preparations made for starting the day.
Upon being questioned, they said, quite simply, that they had been traveling so fast in these last days that they had gotten ahead of their souls and were going to stay quietly in camp for the day in order for their souls to catch up with them.
So they came to a complete stop.