Buffalo National River

Jo and I decided to take advantage of a mild January day by heading up to the Buffalo National River.  What we had in mind was a hike from the Highway 65 bridge over towards Gilbert.  Maybe we'd hike the whole route, then turn around and hike back.  Maybe we'd only hike part ways and turn around whenever we started feeling tired.

As it turned out, Jo and I did not hike very far at all -- only a couple of miles total.  When we came to the first unmarked fork in the trail, we chose wrong.  We looped back to where we started instead of heading on toward Gilbert.

Instead of hiking we drove down to to Shineye, a swimming beach popular with locals because it's not as crowded as the swimming areas at Tyler Bend or Buffalo Point.   On this winter day, we had the entire area all to ourselves.

Bucket was the only one wanting to go for a swim.  Jo and Rusty thought the lower fifties were still way to chilly for swimming and wanted to keep their feet dry.

And the river flows on.

Buffalo National River

Carrots

Jo figured she might as well go ahead and harvest our fall carrot crop. They'd grown all they were going to grow. Leaving them in the ground would only risk rodent damage.

Lettuce and carrots Jo harvested. We've never had any luck growing carrots. Because our soil is thin and contains a lot of clay and rocks, our carrots were always short and stubby. We "solved" this problem and achieved success at growing carrots by planting a short, stubby variety.

Not all the carrots fully developed. They're still tasty, but peeling is tricky.

Carrots

Asparagus

Our asparagus is finally starting to yellow and die back for the winter.

Asparagus