Babies

Lea just caught a glimpse of this mother deer and her 2 babies this morning in the backyard. This is the first fawn we've seen.

What Goes Around .... Comes Around

This is a very interesting story, at least to us it is and we thought it worth sharing.

In the spring of 2007 we traded our Xterra 4Wheel Drive, which we loved, for a more practical minivan .... damn ... I hate losing personality. The only reason we did that was because we decided to start storing our motorhome in Lake Tahoe and drive back and forth each summer. The Xterra wouldn't work because there just wasn't enough room for all our stuff and the dogs, cat and parrot. We pulled the seats out of the van and put in a platform (with the help of Ree), so we had tons of room for everything except …. our beloved kayaks. We ordered a Yakima roof rack system to put on the van but it was on backorder and we couldn't get it in time before leaving for Tahoe for the summer. We really hated to just leave our kayaks in Arizona to dry up and blow away so we did the unthinkable …. we put them up for sale. Diana and Nancy were the buyers and that made us happy. They already had kayaks but wanted a couple more for their Arkansas lake home …. that also made us happy but we still hated to see them go. So that was that and time passed. 2010 has been a year of many changes for Lea and I. Lea's mother passed away, we quit our job of 18 years as Jeep photographers, we gave away our motorhome and most of it's contents (we lived in it for 7 years and every summer for many years so it had a lot of "us" in it), Lea quit her driving job, I quit my job at SMR, we sold our place at SMR, we bought a home in Arkansas (wasn't figuring on that when we sold the kayaks) and we're preparing to start earning our income through our art, …. wow! BUT …. while all this was happening …. I gave Diana the iMac that I had in the motorhome….. and….. she gave us our kayaks back!!!! How did that all happen???? They came full circle back to us! We loved those kayaks and now here we are …. living in Arkansas with the kayaks that we sold in Arizona. Thank you Diana and Nancy for both giving us our kayaks back and leading us to the most beautiful and peaceful place to live that we ever could have imagined. So many things had to happen for this to have happened. Think about it ….. just one little hiccup like …. not meeting Diana and everything in our lives would now be very different. How thankful we are to have met Diana and Nancy.

So here's a longer than normal video of our first day with the kayaks that we bought in the year 2000 in Arizona, sold in 2007 in Arizona and got back in 2010 in Arkansas ..... gotta love it!



But ... to start the morning off .... before going kayaking .... I did some weed eating and the little fox came along when I was done to check it out ....

Sunset to Sunrise

6pm last night ....

6am this morning ....


So here's a few of the things that's going on ....

Lea has finally gotten to the point of organizing her shop so that she's able to start pulling her wood out of the boxes and get them on shelves ....



Here's what the big 18 wheeler freight truck brought us a week or so ago .... we had to meet him in the Walmart parking lot because the streets to our place are too small .... but here it is all put together ....



Oh .... it's a dust collector .... and here's Lea making some wood dust. She can move the big catching end of the collector to whatever wood dust making equipment she's using. She had a smaller Jet dust collector in the shed at SMR and it took up about 25% of the available space so this is a dream come true for Lea. Pretty soon she'll be back at her lathe turning beautiful stuff



Meanwhile, I miter cut a bunch of wood and made some new sizes of stretcher frames for silk, since we got several new sizes. One of the new sizes I'll be dying today is 30"x30" .... I'm excited about that size .... it's the biggest square you see in the photo



And here they are hanging up on a wall in the "dirt basement" ....



So my river floating tube just doesn't want to hold air in it for very long and I can't find the leak so today we'll go to the river rafting outfitters place in Hardy and get more durable tubes .... ones with covers over the rubber so they're less apt to puncture. Of course if I could avoid those occasional rocks in the river maybe it would save the tube as well as my butt.

One last photo for this morning. I was mowing the front lawn Sunday and it occurred to me that I haven't shot a street view picture of our house since the day we bought it .... being freshly mowed and all it seemed like a good time to do it

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Watered the "rubbermaid" garden, mowed the lawn, rescreened the basement porch screendoor, made a poached egg brunch and then walked down the hill to spend a lazy afternoon in the river ....

Sunday Morning Sights & Sounds

Yesterday I unpacked my bag of mics and other cool stuff such as my field recorder. I charged it up and tested it out this morning on the deck.

So have a sip of your coffee and join me for 1 minute this morning :)



Sunday Morning by OzarkRains
(if you have a slow internet connection you may want to pause it after it starts to load and wait for it load before playing)

Tanks, Walks, Parks and Peppers

Do you think it's weird to clean your propane tank? Well I guess I don't because I really hated the black mold and green stuff growing on it. The propane guys were here the other day because we kept smelling propane and while they were fixing the leak I asked how to clean the tank ..... they said "Oh it's easy .... just spray it with some bleach and it will wash off clean in 5 minutes". Well .... they lied. The half of the tank that's clean is because I scrubbed it with a steel wool pad .... a lot! Yes .... I did finish it :) and I don't think anyone saw me doing it :) .... whew!



I don't know if every summer is like this here but I can't help but notice that almost every morning is different ..... regarding temperature and humidity :) Yesterday morning I would not have even considered walking the dogs because it was kinda hot and humid but this morning when I got up I opened all the doors and windows because it was so cool and dry. That happens a lot and I love that ... I love waking up in the morning not really knowing what the weather is going to be. So here's a short video I did with my iPhone walking the dogs in our neighborhood this morning ..... be sure and turn up your computer volume and listen to the sounds ......



Here's a few of photos of a small park just up river from us about 1/4 mile and within the golf course. I hope you can read the new bright red sign ..... in case you can't ... it says that "this spring was used by the indians of this area as a tribal meeting ground. Pleace (yes is says "pleace" but it's supposed to say "peace") existed between all tribes when camped in this spot". This "spot" is now in the middle of one of the Cherokee Village golf courses .... they built the course around it and seemed to do a good job ..... I love that!





We had 2 bell peppers growing right next to each other so I picked one to put in our pasta sauce tonight .... really .... this is the first fruits of our "rubbermaid garden" labor :)



I'll let you know how our sauce turned out.

Sunday Tubing

This morning I finished the "Gas Station" bathroom .... that's the bathroom in the basement .... it had really gross decaying carpeting in it and it was generally kinda icky. We really didn't want to spend any money on it so we didn't (other than new toilet tank insides) .... we used all the leftover pieces of wood from our living room floor, some really nice remnant carpeting I found in the dirt basement and the old baseboard from the livingroom. Anyway .... here it is in all it's "Gas Station" glory :)



Check out this shot .... that's Lea (of course) in her shop, online and ordering parts using her iPad. The internet router is upstairs but the signal is full strength in the basement .... I love that!



So .... being Sunday and all we headed down to the river for some cooling off fun. I strapped a little "GoPro" camera on my head and shot a little video of playing around in the Spring River. What I didn't include was my tube flipping over and slamming the camera and my glasses into my nose .... producing enough blood to shorten the afternoon in the river .... bummer. Anyway here's a little "retro" type video I put together ....