Happy Christmas Eve!

     Our Azalea bushes really put on a show for Christmas this year!

A riot of blooms from one of our Christmas Cactus plants is a thing of beauty bringing a smile as it lights up the kitchen window sill!

To each of you I wish a Merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and may you be blessed in every way in the coming year. 

Eve of Christmas Eve

It is the Eve of Christmas Eve, a big moon is rising in our Texas sky, in preparation of a Full Moon on Christmas morning.  Today has been a perfectly awesome day filled with sunshine and a nice southerly breeze.  This is one of the many, many, many reasons that I love living here.....enjoying nice weather, warm enough to enjoy a walk today with my Sweetie, tee-shirt weather, only a couple of days before Christmas.....absolutely no place better than right here....home sweet home!

Today I took these photos of some tenacious Lantana blooms enjoying this warm weather.

The flowering Quince thinks it must be Spring.

We invested in a small portable pop-up greenhouse this Winter to house all our houseplants.

Can't tell you how awesome it was not to have to drag all those plants into our small house for the Winter!  Love it!  As you can see the zippered door is rolled all the way up to the top and both the front and back vent is open.....thankfully, no cold weather yet, but we are ready for when the freezing temperatures do come our way. 

Camping w/Titmouse!

Recently I was scheduled to be the hostess for our Thursday Saddlebag Trail ride.  As you know, I am no longer riding my horse, however I do still get together with my Saddlebag women friends every Thursday.....for lunch, or something.  So this time I planned for an overnight campout and ride at Trace Trails near Athens.

My hiking friend, Mary "Titmouse" jumped at the chance to join me on the overnight campout.  Now we had had a lot of rain in the days preceding this campout/ride, but the day I headed down to Trace Trails the weather was nice but there was a chance for an afternoon thundershower.  I made it there about 3:00 p.m. just as the dark clouds began rolling in so I hurriedly put up my tent, then threw in my sleeping bag, pad, and everything else I could grab quickly and dove into my tent just as the rains came.  The rain poured down relentlessly for an hour and a half.  Oh my, I sure wish Titmouse had gotten here before the deluge!  She did arrive just as the rain was tapering off, and remained sitting in her car on the roadway, not sure if she could make it into the pasture where we were going to camp because there was virtually a small river running down thru the driveway and into the roadway.  Once the rain stopped, she decided to drive in where I had driven in, to the left of the driveway, thru the tall green grass, hoping for better traction.  She "punched it" and didn't let up until she was at the top of the rise where I had parked my car earlier.

Amazingly, as soon as the rain stopped, the sun came out and we were rewarded with an incredible sunset!

Fun times with Titmouse!  Our tents are our "homes away from home".

Titmouse is hauling all her bedding from her car to her tent.

A campfire makes camping so much better!  You can see all the water puddles all around our campsite, but thankfully our tents were pitched uphill from here on dryer ground. 

I transported plenty of dry firewood from home so we could have this nice campfire.

                        
                         Titmouse enjoying the campfire!

The next morning we awoke to beautiful sunshine.  We are surrounded by lush green field and trees.

There are six more Saddlebag women due to meet here this morning for our Thursday ride.  However, unbeknownst to me and Titmouse, the hard rain yesterday caused a washout/sinkhole on the county road leading into this place, so a pilot vehicle from the county led these gals in another route.  My friend Shari was in the lead and immediately upon leaving the roadway, her rig sunk in the muddy driveway!

So it is Trace Trails landowner, Billy, and his tractor to the rescue

Shari is standing there with her eyes covered up.....saying "Oh no, my poor truck!"

Billy's brother is keeping an eye on things as Billy's tractor eases Shari's truck and trailer out of the mud.

He then drove her truck back thru that mud "by punching it hard" and not letting up until he had Shari's rig back onto the hard surface of the county road.

Now it was finally time for the gals to saddle up and ride.  Thursdays are always an adventure in one way or another.

 

While the other gals are riding their horses, Titmouse and I will go for a little walk in the woods. 

 The trails had a good bit of water running, trickling, or standing and a lot of soft ground (also known as mud).  And we saw plenty of mushrooms!

The brightly colored leaves of the sumac bushes added a splash of color along the path .

I have no idea what these green plum-size balls were.

Titmouse stops to admire these bright yellow flowers, and as always she is just so happy to be walking in the woods.  Her joy is contagious!

As we walked along I admired the spectacular sky overhead.  What an awesome day to be outdoors....with friends!

 

Home again, Home again! + Shelter Building!

Like I've always said, "I love going on vacation", but I love even more coming home from vacation!  There is absolutely no place in the whole wide world like our home sweet home.

Look, look, look what Tom found in the garden when we got home!

Wow, that is a beautiful pumpkin!  The biggest one Tom has ever grown in the garden!

Nothing prettier than watching a sunset right here at home.

The week after we got home from our Arkansas/Louisiana vacation, we were back in northeast Arkansas near Mena, Ark. to volunteer once again helping to build a shelter on the Ouachita Trail.  It is very rewarding and fun work with other "FoOT", Friends of the Ouachita Trail, volunteers.

We met up with our group at this railroad crossing along a Forest Service Road.  We caught a ride to the shelter site with one of the guys who had a 4-wheel drive truck since it was a rocky dirt lane for about a mile up Black Fork Mountain to get to the shelter site.

About half way up the mountain, we stopped to offload a 8 foot long 6X6 post to be used for the shelter sign.

This is what we saw when we arrived, the foundation work done the previous day by the FoOT crew.

Slippery, slick mud everywhere due to the recent rain.

You see that blue truck thru the trees, that is as far as he got before he lost traction, so we all walked down and unloaded tools and supplies from that truck and carried them up to the work site.

This group works together like a well-oiled machine because they are very talented and most all have previous experience in constructing these shelter from start to finish in 5 days or less, and they bring along all their own tools along with their expertise.

This is Bo Lea, our FoOT president checking the level, he wants it just right, nothing haphazard, these shelters must be built right and sturdy to withstand the forces of nature out here along the trail.

                                Teamwork Rocks!

It's break time and everyone has hauled their own provisions up the mountain, we find a place to sit, and enjoy the camaraderie while we eat lunch. 

Following lunch, the Black Fork Mountain Shelter really starts to take shape and what a gorgeous setting this is for a shelter, a little fall color beginning to show in the woods surrounding the worksite.

Wow, that is an enormous circular saw that Norm is using to saw thru those logs!

                         
                           Hey, it's coming right along!

It takes a team effort to lift that huge beam up on top of the front shelter posts.

When you hammer a giant nail, you need a giant hammer, actually a sledge hammer! 

As usual, this shelter is situated on the side of a mountain.

 

Unfortunately Tom and I have only this one day (Wed.) off in the week to help on this shelter, but I know every little bit helps.  The plan was to put the roof on the following day however it began to rain after we left in the evening (Tom and I had to hike back down the mountain to our car) and the shelter was not finished until the following Monday.

 

This is an example of what the shelter will look like upon completion:

This is the Stateline Shelter that we helped with last year.

 

These shelters are truly a welcome sight for hikers on the Ouachita Trail.  The final three Ouachita Trail shelters are scheduled to be erected in 2016.  There will then be a shelter approximately every ten miles along the entire length of the trail.  How awesome is that!