A Couple of Weeks In January

Red clay hill on a sunny afternoon.

Heading home on our afternoon walk.

Interesting clouds in a blue sky.

Ice on the little waterfall behind our house.

Ice flow from seeps on the bluffs.

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A Couple of Weeks In January

Friday, 12/26/14

Clouds returned.  Overcast all day.  Increasingly damp as the day progressed.  Periods of light mist off and on during the afternoon.  Light drizzle during the evening.  Gusty south wind most of the day, but it backed off to moderate during the evening.

South wind is producing higher temperatures as well as increased moisture.  Temperature steadily increased all day, including during the evening.  High for the day was 51°F/10°C at midnight.

Cut, loaded, brought home, unloaded and stacked a small load of firewood.

I often harvest firewood from fallen trees, but I do not think there is any usable firewood in this tree.  I'll leave it for the bugs and fungi.

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Friday, 12/26/14

Christmas Day 2014

Today was the first day we've enjoyed significant sunshine in about a week.  Clear in the early AM, but clouds slowly moved back in as the day progressed.

Jo washed a load of clothes and was able to get them dried out on the clothesline in the sunshine.  Underwear you can hang on racks around the wood stove.  Sheets and towels are not so easily dried indoors.

Pines along our road out.

I think this cloud formation is called a mackerel or buttermilk sky, but I'm not certain.

Down near the house, a seep runs across the road, causing that section to stay wet and muddy all winter.

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Christmas Day 2014

Gray Skies Continue

Wednesday (12/17) dawned relatively clear, but with a red sky on the horizon.  Clouds soon moved back in to cover the sky, but not before Jo captured a photo of the walnut tree in our yard. 

Thursday (12/18) was overcast all day.  This was the view right after we turned around and headed back home on our afternoon walk.

The grass and weeds at the road's edge were wet with accumulated moisture.

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Gray Skies Continue

Saturday, 12/13/14

After several days of typical winter gloom, overcast and fog, we enjoyed a few hours of mostly clear sky this afternoon -- a most pleasant surprise not in our forecast.




Unfortunately, the blue sky did not stick around for long.  By the time Jo and I took our afternoon walk at four o'clock, overcast and fog had returned.

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Saturday, 12/13/14

A Little Miscellaneous

Dogwood leaves and berries.















Turn out the lights; the garden's over.














Our road out ... up near the gate.













The dill was the only plant in the garden not damaged by our light freeze.






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A Little Miscellaneous

Road Work

First Caterpillar of 2008: CHECK

Thanks to the intercession of my neighbor, the county dispatched a road grader to even out the rough spots in our road out. (It helps to have a local on your side.) The road is much improved and I don't have to worry about high-centering the pickup or van. The places with the deepest ruts are still a little rough. As the grader operator said, he didn't have a lot to work with up at the top of the hill -- meaning that the rocks to dirt ratio was skewed too far in favor of the rocks.

Now we have deep ruts filled with loose dirt and rocks. A hard downpour would quickly wash them out again. A moderate rain would turn them into mud holes. Therefore, Jo and I have placed an order for a half dozen light rains and have specified that drying out time between showers be included.

Bucket has given her approval of the road work while Rusty is still checking things out prior to christening the improvements.

Road Work

Persistent Daffodils

In August, 2006, the local water district laid a water line down to our place. Jo dug and replanted a cluster of daffodil bulbs growing in the ditch's path, but missed a few. The neglected bulbs were unceremoniously dug up with a dragline's scoop and rudely replanted with a bulldozer's blade. We now have daffodils all over the general area, including these growing in the road. They've reemerged and are trying to bloom again this year despite being driven over for a year and a half.

Persistent Daffodils

Friday, 11/23/07

I ventured just a little ways down into the woods this afternoon, mainly just to take a few photos. Jo and I have continued taking our walks along the road leading out to the main county road and have stayed out of the woods due to modern weapons deer hunting season going on. I seems like deer season is running for a long time this year. The modern weapons portion began on November 10 and ran through November 18. It restarted on Thanksgiving day and will run through December 2. (Don't ask me why there was a 3-day hiatus. I don't know.)

When we walk in the woods, Jo and I spend a lot of time off our own 40 acres. All the land surrounding our place is owned by our neighbor, Jerry Joe. Jerry hunts, but due to several bad experiences in the past, rarely allows anyone else to hunt on his land. Walking in the woods would probably be safe, but when it comes to possibly getting shot, not taking any chances seems to be the most prudent course to follow.

They say that back in horse and wagon days, the old road in this photo used to be the main route off Star Mountain and down into Bear Creek Valley. I don't know if that's true or not, but it could be. The road does follow the bench above the creek all the way down to the valley, and there are old rock walls in various places along the route.

Twisted Pine

Bits and Pieces:

The temperature fell to 23º overnight. We had to thaw the rabbits' water bottles by the wood stove this morning.

With sunshine in the forecast, Jo washed a load of clothes this morning. She said her fingers got cold while hanging them out on the clothesline.

Jo finished up a bisque firing I started last night. Actually, the kiln is programed to start the firing itself. All I do is record the electric meter reading and turn on the exhaust fan. This is Jo's last bisque firing before our next show. If it's not thrown and fired by now, it's not going down to Little Rock with us.

Since the temperature was only forecast to remain below freezing for a short time period, we didn't do anything about protecting the studio water pipes from freezing. Jo said the water over there was a bit slow to start flowing this morning, but no real problems.

Jo fixed a pot of black turtle beans for lunch -- actually for several lunches. There just ain't no point in cooking a small pot of beans. I put some of the beans into the fridge and some into the freezer.

The little air compressor over in Jo's studio didn't want to run this morning. Actually, it ran but almost immediately tripped the breaker on the power strip into which she has it plugged. The power strip breaker is probably just barely big enough to run the compressor under the best of circumstances. With cold compressor oil it wouldn't do the job. Directing the air flow from a small electric heater onto the compressor for a while solved that problem.

We took our afternoon walk up to the gate and back without interruption today. The past couple of days we've encountered Jerry Joe either cutting firewood, deer hunting or tending to his cows. Rusty and Bucket always behave badly when we meet anyone on our walks, lots of barking and getting totally hyper. It's the "territory" thing. When we're away from our place they are usually pretty good.

Today's temperature topped out at 53º. Sunny skies, though it was starting to cloud up by sunset.

Friday, 11/23/07

Fall Color Mostly On The Ground

We had some gusty south wind early in the week. Now most of the colorful fall leaves are on the ground, although a hickory at the top of the first hill on the way out from our place was still showing some bright yellow.

Fall Color Mostly On The Ground

Sand Mystery

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)

A few weeks back, Jo discovered this unusual Black-eyed Susan alongside our road out. We'd never seen a Black-eyed Susan with the red-brown color on the petals. After a bit of online research, we finally concluded that there is a great deal of variability in these flowers. The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center has a page of Black-eyed Susan photos that shows a wide variety of shapes, petal numbers and colors, including ones like "ours". This variation is normal if not common.

Even though we knew that seeds saved from this plant probably would not produce a new plant with the same color pattern, we decided to save the seeds anyway just to see what happened. Jo marked the plant with a stake with a bit of surveyor's tape wrapped around its top. She figured we'd collect the seeds when they'd dried. Little did we know that her marker would be interpreted as meaning "dump sand here".



I really don't know the whole story about why the sand came to be dumped on top of the wildflowers. All I know is this: Friday morning our neighbor's son, Halan Dean, drove down to ask if we'd ordered any sand. A guy with a dump truck load of sand was up at the top of the hill, but for some reason he wasn't clear as to who'd ordered the sand or where it needed to be delivered. Halan drove down to ask if it was ours in order to save the driver (and us) the hassle of getting a big truck turned around in our yard if we hadn't placed the order, which we had not. That's all I know. Why the sand was eventually dumped alongside the road in the woods, I don't know. I also know that the Black-eyed Susan with the red-tinted petals us underneath that sand pile.

Sand Mystery

Daffodils in the Road

Despite being transplanted and replanted by numerous applications of heavy equipment while our water line was being laid, at least a couple of dozen daffodils are trying to grow in the area around out water meter, including these out in the middle of the road.

From March, 2007

Daffodils in the Road