Carolina Morning

As I wake before sunrise I decide to just get up, fortunatulately it was 5:30 AM and not 2:30 AM. Of course, Lily my kitty starts whining that she wants outside and the dogs get up with me but I don't let them go outside until I can see outside and daybreak wakes. When we do go outside the dogs run off and Lily follows them. She knows these woods as well as they do and loves to roam with them. Usually when they come back she is right on their tails.  Emma arrived back home first this morning and of course she is wet from the dew and even had burrs on her legs this morning. Oh, I hate to see that start again. We have to brush them out of her hair and it involves brushfulls removed from her. I always keep  old bath towels  outside to dry them with when they return and I wash and dry more dog bath towels than I so our shower towels.   Sometimes, we go through 5-6 bath towels a day drying them. 

Oh well, that is part of living in the woods when I am so grateful for! As I sit on the porch while day breaks I usually cannot sit still for long. I take my coffee and rejoice in another day! We truly are fortunate to be able to have retired when we love to be. I don't take for granite that our dreams have come true as hard as living on retirement is for us.

The birds are not yet at the feeders but they will arrive later in the morning.  I did see a gray bird at the jelly feeder I put up over the weekend. I get library magazines and read an article that Orioles love a grape jelly feeder so I will try and watch it to see what arrives. I used a bed spring that I collect and sell on Etsy in my supplies shop,"ByLightOfMoon".  I put a glass vase inside it and hung it from a perch I see them waiting on to get their turn at the feeder close by.  I will have to change the jelly often like the hummingbird feeders but I have plenty.

I wonder if the gray bird was a titmouse that I see often at the feeders along with goldfinches and chickadees.  They sing the morning in songs so beautiful.  They squirrels will also wake up and arrive but they birds are keeping them at bay now more often than in the winter. 

I hear a donkey every morning and my neighbor told me that it is asking to be fed. He also said it might be at the alpaca farm close to us and that they keep them to keep the coyotes out of the alpacka farms. The one close by us is "Bedford Falls Alpaca Farm". My husband was at the Warne Community Center meeting last night and he asked Jim Craig who makes beautiful knives "Jim Craig Knives"Jim Craig Knives if they had a donkey. He replied no but that is what close to his farm and another man told my husband he had seen on his farm recently a deer flying through a field with a coyote on his tail so he shot the coyote. What a sight that must have been that he was there to witness this and save this deer. We have deer in our neighborhood which is a "No Trespass" and" No Hunting" neighborhood so we see them often and I love that immensely!   

I went to the "Georgia Mountain Research Center" yesterday as a weedier and tour guide. I walked the grounds with two guests and another volunteer tour guide who was more knowledgeable than I about many of the native plants growing there. I took many notes on our tour and am learning so much about what is native and growing around us.

Of course on the way home I stopped roadside and collected some more plants like I really need more plants. I am filling the yard side by the ditch with plants that can take a lot of water trying to stop the drainage flow from being so severe. I am seeing some of the plants I got last year when we moved here blooming again that I had forgot about.  The roots took hold and I am just lucky as I play with these native plants to see them cooperate with my dirty garden fingers hands. I have never in my life used a nail brush on my fingernails trying to clean out dirt than I have ever done before.  In fact, I have worn them down so much they need replacing with better brushes. One moves on!

I saw tansy and foamflowers at the gardens yesterday. The Bottlebrush Buckeye tree had a few buckeyes on it but the milkweed allium- like purple blooms were gone. They did have some new pods on them a green spiky pod like something.  When we walked the woodland trail and showed our guests the Indian marker tree our other guide pointed out the bear shape that appears on the tree also. I had not noticed that before but, yEs, it is there if you look. It also has a point on one end maybe pointing out a further trail or something important to the Indians that may have lived here.  We also have one in our subdivision by the pond. The tree separate into two trees with a directional marker on the point.

I have been reading my library magazines this weekend on the porch and learning so much about the civil war and the history in North Carolina. It is rich with things that happened here.

I am spending more time on the porch as I had two incidents last weekend happen to me and it has just slowed me down which it should. IT is so hard for me to sit still with my neuropathy or maybe the RX medicines I take for it.  Anyway, I am always on the go and I have lost much weight since moving here. All my clothes are falling off me and I got some nice shorts, skirt,  and pants at the Thrift Shop I like to go to at $3.00 each and Liz Clairborne and Coldwater Creek are great buys. They look like new. I can even wear my" Junk Gypsy" tops I got when in Round Top, Tx at the Antique week event several years ago.

Yes, this is the "Junk Gypises"  that have the show on HGTV this year. I met both girls and their families at the event. I have wonderful memories of attending that event. We camped in my Vintage Shasta 1963 teardrop trailer and I miss her so much. I had to sell her earlier this year as we had no money to pull her anywhere and I don't see it happening anytime soon and we need the money . I guess this is one of the things in life I just have to adjust too. I have envisioned camping all over North Carolina and the surrounding areas exploring the many sights and festivals as so many are available around us. I read of two events that will happen this fall around Labor Day. One is the "Colfax Persimmon Festival" and another is the Old Fashioned Farmer's Day in Silk Hope, NC  festival. I read of both of them in the "Our State" magazine, November 2011 issue.   Persimmons are found in 100 North Carolina counties. I would love to attend them this fall if we can do it. I don't think I have ever tasted a persimmon before but they sound delicious. You have to wait for the fruits to fall to the ground to be ripe and they only are good for 2 days at most.  They sell jams and puddings. Each event is 4 -5 hours away from our home, so we will just have to see how things and money is closer to these events. They are near each other but different weekends in the fall of 2012. 

I was just looking at a hornet nest that had blown to the ground I assume from recent storms when I was swarmed by the mad hornets. I started a dance to get them out of my shirt and fortunately I had on long sleeves and long pants.  I ended up in the Emergency room with what they called a life threatening reaction. I lips and fingers swelled up real bad. I was getting horse when talking and my husband reacted correctly I suppose by taking me there over my protest that we had no insurance.  Anyway, four hours later I left with a prescription for an EPI pen for future reactions which they told me I am now more susceptible too since this reaction was so bad.  They gave me breathing treatments and oxygen while they treated my reaction, also shot of epi for treatment. I guess you shoudl listen to your loved ones when they know better that you and are worried about your health when you are saying, " I wil be fine, just give me some Benedryl. My husband had given me three pills before we arrived there and they said that was good but I should have four so they gave me another dose, max is 100MG, so I had four 25 mg all together. I believe these dose was by shot as I got a few plus IV.  Wow, that was an experience I never want to repeat so I shall be more careful in the future but I do live in a buggy world. I am always have an itch here and there from something I have got into.  I had two bad reactions from poison ivy or poison sumac last year and I have never in my life had one before but I know I have had to have been exposed. We spent so much time in the woods camping, hiking,  and with our jeep trips in the past, plus I played a lot in  my childhood in the fields near me. We also camped a lot as I was growing up by the lakes in Missouri.  My parents loved boating and our whole neighborhood used to go camping together.  That is so many fabulous memories for me.  we swam and skied on water skies every time my father was home from his job as a Greyhound Bus driver. He would call my mother as he came into town so she could start packing to go to the lake for a few days. We only had one car as I remember and we took him to work for many years while we also waited in the car for his bus to return to our town, Springfield, Mo.

I took a book with me many times while we waited as my daughter does the same thing today. She always has a book in the car reading while they travel. In fact, she is coming to see us this weekend.

Her new Golden Retriever puppy is going to be named Hunter she says and she is coming up to pick him out in the litter. He will not be old enough to return home with her but she will have identified which puppy she wants to be hers and my son-in-laws.  I know she is getting excited and I am too!  She ( we ) lost Barkley in January from loving him for 12 years and I miss him every day still.  But, we have to move on!

It is time to finish this blog post up and get to work. I have to plant my cuttings from yesterday and clean up the house as it is getting away from me again Oh, I fell on our stairs last weekend too after get bit by the hornets. So I also have tailbone hurts where I bruised it really bad. That is one reason I have been on the daybed on the porch reading my magazines. I can't sit in my rocking chair long till  I have to get up and move around.  It hurts bad but will just take time to heal. I do have to be more careful. It was early Sunday morning and I just catch the edge of the step not getting my full foot on it. I bumped my way down 6-7 steps on my butt, at least I am thankful I did not go head over heels.

On my way till next time,  I am always thinking of things to be telling you and not getting to the computer to write and post and I hate these long posts.

Smiles, Cyndi