So, it’s been a big week for us here at TC.

First of all, the root canal. Let us just say that any time you put the word “micro” with dental work it really means “macro” in the billing department. And that’s all we have to say about that.

Friday we drove to Mobile, Alabama. As hard as it is to believe, we were going to finally (sit down) pick up some of the A/C equipment for the Big Blue Building. We brought along two strong teenagers, rented a 24 ft. Budget Truck in Mobile, filled it up with equipment at United Refrigeration, and drove it back to Bonifay (about 400 miles round trip). Here are some packing shots….
Getting started….

While they could still get to the back of the truck….

And finally with the truck all filled up…..

I’m pretty sure we won’t be here long enough to actually get any of it installed, but at least it’s here. And that is a good thing!

The weekend flew by – a trip to Dothan (to return the truck), a quiet afternoon, a good service on Sunday at the little Baptist church we’ve been attending, and then our standard Sunday dinner – soup and PB&J’s for 70 hungry boys.

And then today – well, today is Gary’s birthday . I figured “our boys” would like to celebrate Brother Gary’s B-day – and I KNEW they would like to share in the cake!

I did manage to convince them not to throw him in the lake! He would have been a good sport about it, but I wasn’t sure his body was up to the event!

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Honey!

So, after being on the road for almost 4 years (can you believe THAT!), we’ve decided to “move” to Florida. Since we no longer own property anywhere, and home is basically where ever we park it, we’ve been trying to figure out the best state to call home. We still love Pennsylvania, but everytime we pay that 3.01% income tax (like this month), we start to re-think our residency there. There are only a few states that have no income tax and different states have different residency requirements. Can you believe it, some of them actually want proof that you LIVE there! Florida (I guess since it already has so many snowbirds) makes it pretty easy. All you need is a street address, which we got when we signed up for a mail forwarding service in Lake City. So, after checking out insurance quotes, vehicle registration costs, and tax levels, we decided to become Floridians. Here is some of our new “look” -

One of the hardest parts of this change-over was when the girl at the DMV handed me my new license and threw my PA one in the trash. Ouch. It seemed so final.

One of the funniest parts of our change-over was looking out the window of the DMV to see this house in the middle of the road.

See the police cars behind it? Well, they had just pulled the house over (and that’s a trick, believe you me!) because they failed to get the correct permits. We were back in town today to finish up the RV registration and were happy to see that the house had moved on its way. Apparently though, not before it collected SIX tickets for various house moving violations! Oops!

And on another entirely unrelated subject….
Somehow, several months ago, I wandered onto a really fun webpage called The Pioneer Woman. The writing is very funny, she posts great recipes and takes amazing pictures. And one of the things I have especially enjoyed is the fact that she explains how she gets her photos to be so wonderful (apart from the fact that they are just plain good pictures). I recently purchased Photoshop Elements 6 since I “needed” a photo editing software for my HPI work (oh, and maybe because I really enjoy messing around with my pictures!), so it’s been fun to follow some of her steps in making a good picture even better. I’ve been having a good time playing with my pictures in Photoshop, plus, when I upload them to Flickr there is another option for more editing with Picnik (I’m sure you’ve noticed some of the different edges and effects in recent posts. Yep, that’s just me playing!)
Here are a couple pics of that new little foal – check out how long his (her?) legs are! Almost as long as mama’s!

These two were taken on the same walk – can you tell we’ve had some great weather?

There’s still alot to learn….stay tuned.

Oh, and tomorrow? We head to Dothan for Gary’s root canal.

But only due to a good dose of prescription pain killer and the start of a course of antibiotics. Gary has an infected tooth, and once all the pain and infection goes away, he gets to have root canal. So, that gives you an idea of our day!

But on a more upbeat note (and since we are confident that Gary will recover), here are some new pictures of our little granddaughters. Seems they all went to the zoo on one of the spring-like days last week!

Can’t wait until we can see them in June!

Remember all those cute little cow pictures I’d been posting? Well, they got moved out of our viewing field and for several weeks all we did was watch the grass grow. I guess the grass finally got green enough on that side of the fence, because we have new neighbors….

But on the other side of us, the neighborhood has really cleared out. We are the Last Volunteers Standing. The RV park that held up to 20 RV’s at any given time over the winter, has now emptied out to just 4. One is empty (it’s the “guest trailer”), two are occupied by staff members and then there is us. So it’s kinda lonesome down here. But on the bright side, there is almost never a line for the washing machines!

Gary just stopped by and asked if I wanted to see a brand new foal, just born today. Here he is – resting again after standing for a little bit. There was quite the crowd around – coming to offer their congratulations, I guess!

What you lookin’ at?

Sweet life on the farm!

I came across this picture of our family cabin in Vermont the other night. Judging by the new construction look (both in the landscaping and in the building) it was probably taken around 1938. This little building has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. My grandfather, the town doctor in the small Vermont town of Bradford, bought a 200 acres homestead on the side of Wrights Mountain around 1935. Though it had once been a small farm with a cluster of buildings, only the granite skeleton of cellars and foundations remained. He built this small one room cabin in 1937 or 1938 on one of the foundations, right next to a cellar hole lined with massive granite stones. The story goes that he built it so he could keep track of my grandmother and his children (my dad and his brother and sister). Apparently Gramma Lizzie wasn’t all the happy living the fishbowl life of small town doctor’s wife so she would pack up the kids periodically and head off for different adventures. We’ve been told she had one of the first trailers brought into the state and used to go camping with the kids along the banks of the local rivers. (Obviously before the days of KOA campgrounds!). But whether he had it built to keep track of Lizzie or just to give himself a get-away place not too far from town doesn’t really matter. We will be forever grateful for the gift that he gave his future generations.
The Cabin hasn’t really changed much over the years. I don’t know when it was shingled in red, but it has always been that way as far as I remember. The pond was dug in the…uummmm..1950’s something (Elna remembers that, I don’t), a back porch was added in the early 60’s (I remember that), electricity was added in (around?) 1964 to accommodate the new fangled Destroilet (Yes, it was a gas toilet. Honest.) When I was a youngun’, there were cows that roamed the property from a neighboring farm. I don’t know why that ended, but we haven’t had any bovines around for probably 20 years. Some of the property has been sold off (we’re down to about 100 acres), and we’ve built a new road. The Destroilet bit the dust a decade or so ago, and a good old fashioned outhouse has served us well ever since. We still use the same well I carried water from as a teenager (the original well was replaced in the 60’s sometime), and although we now have water pumped up to close to the cabin, we still claim “no running water” with pride. No TV, barely a good radio signal, and no phone. (OK, cell phones work up there sometimes, but that’s a pretty recent development. And while it’s nice to be able to call for a tow truck (like last summer), it seems just wrong somehow when the phone actually rings.) Pear trees have grown up in the cellar hole – the perfect spot for a hammock. The red wooden boat that we fished from with Grampy Doc has been replaced with an aluminum one from Sears (though it seems to leak about the same). Here is The Cabin today (well, not today, but within the last couple of years!) -

Doc and Lizzie left The Cabin to my parents, and they left it to the four of us kids. And it brings all of us great joy to see the latest generation (Lizzie and Doc’s great-great grandchildren) enjoying it and loving it as they did. And we do.
Thank you, dear grandparents!