When I returned home from my hike last October, I felt like I was probably in the best shape physically of my entire life! However, it sure was easy to slow down and become more sedentary and I soon put on 25 lbs.! By April of this year, I knew I had to do something! Or get bigger clothes!
My friend, Mary Ann, who lives in Grand Saline, about 16 miles from me , motivated me to get back to walking! I guess we motivate each other, because we began to meet, twice a week, to go for a seven mile walk, down little black-top country backroads near her house or mine. We take turns meeting at each others place. It is so invigorating to begin my day, at least twice a week, with a brisk two-hour walk!
Tom and I are also walking the trails on our place, checking for deadfall, following last year's drought. There so many dead trees, EVERYWHERE! When one falls across our trail, we sometimes have to just clear a new path around it. Clearing trail is very hard work, and I am so thankful that Tom embraces the idea of keeping our trails cleared each year.
Since a creek flows thru the middle of this land, just below our house, the bottom land on both sides of the creek is like a "jungle", with many vines, poison ivy, and all other sorts of undergrowth! What a challenge!
It is a good feeling to know that I have enough hay for my horse, "Tex", to get him thru this coming winter. Tom helped me go pick up 32 bales of some good coastal hay that Fran, ( a Saddlebag friend), had stored in her barn since last fall. So hopefully, that will be enough for the winter, since we are getting adequate rainfall this year to keep "Tex's" pasture thick and green for good grazing thru the Fall, I hope.
Last Thursday, I gave a presentation about my 2011 A.T. Hike to the Van Kiwanis Club. That was my third time to do this sort of thing. I was so nervous the first time!! That first time, the Wednesday Study Club, a women's group in Canton, I managed to flounder my way thru a short talk and had some of my hike photos scrolling on a large screen at the same time. The photos were certainly the highlight that day, so in May, when the Canton Lion's Club invited me to speak to their group, I relied more on putting together a slideshow of some photos that would help me to tell about my daily experience on the Trail. Again, the photos were very descriptive themselves, and I'm discovering that even though I wondered at times if I was taking too many pictures while hiking the A.T., I know now that the 2,800++ photos I took were probably not nearly enough! Even though before I began my Hike, I vowed to take a lot of "people/hiker photos", and I did take a lot, I still wish I had taken even more!
This is Dwayne Wheeler, who heads up the Van Kiwanis Club. He is the one who contacted me, and he told me that he has read a lot about the Appalachian Trail, and he has always dreamed of hiking it himself! I encouraged him to go for it, do not put it off too long and regret that he did not fulfil his dream.
I carry my camera along everywhere I go, snapping "gate pictures" as I go, for my "Gates of Texas" book that my friend "Thimbleberry", suggested that I put together. It is quite surprising how many Texans have gates on their property! Some are fancy, some are plain, some are closed, some seem to stay open, and some are heavily padlocked and have all sorts of warning signs posted!
Thank you, "Thimbleberry", for suggesting this book!! I am definitely having fun with it!
My house painting project is nearing completion. What a huge undertaking this has been for me. Challenging but Rewarding! I had originally set a goal of being through by the first day of Summer, however when that didn't happen, I set my sights on finishing by the 4th of July! Still didn't happen! Now my goal is to be thru by the time I leave on my trip to Ireland with my sister, September 12th! I feel confident this is doable! The problem is that sometimes I only get to work on this project about one day a week. Plus now that it is so warm, that amounts to only one morning per week! I am beginning to wonder how I ever had time to work a full-time job!
I remind myself daily that "Life Is An Ongoing Adventure"!
