Photos from Sarah

All of these were taken by Sarah, with the exception of the one of her and Lorelei...which Jeremy took.
First of all, that is Jackson above--Lorelei's little cousin.
This is Lorelei playing in water, of course!
And here we have Jackson on his slide, with Lorelei peaking out. I think you can tell by the smiling face how much she enjoyed him.....
I love the look in Lorelei's eyes as she looks at her daddy....
and you all know who this is....

They are sitting on upstream from the mill in Cumberland Gap--that is the headwaters for Gap Creek....it goes by home. By the time it gets the few miles down there, it is wide enough to flood fields when we have a lot of rain...and also floods the road in two places by home. There is a way out through another farm...but the average person would not be able to do that.

There were two or three summers that we played in that creek almost every single day....and it was always so cold....but George mentioned that when they were at the Gap last summer that it was warm....that totally surprised me. My brother said that now when the water level gets real low, that it does get warmer.

In recent years, since they put the tunnel through the mountain for the road, Gap Creek gets lower than we have ever seen it. Plus there is a spring up near our old place that almost goes dry....and that is something else we had never seen until the Cumberland Gap Tunnel was built.

What memories are made of....

Give me some grass string bailing twine and it is the thing of memories for me.

This is the old walnut tree down home...it has swung more children and provided more hours of entertainment than any store bought item ever could.

It is in poor health now, and covered with ivy. It seemed a giant when I was a kid...we almost always had 3 or 4 swings in it. We all played on them...played tag if you can believe that. All the grandchildren swung in that tree at one time or another. Any cousins that came swung in them. Or any other kid....you could swing as high as possible and never have to worry about a swing set turning over.

Of course, they were made of grass string...usually the first few feet around the tree limb was a piece of chain. And not just light-weight chain either. It was stuff that had weight to it....I don't remember how they were attached to the limb. Then we would double or triple the length of grass string, I think sometimes we braided it, and tied it to the end of the chain.

I do remember playing in one one time, by myself, and the chain came loose and hit me in the head. I do remember crying, but I don't remember if I told mom or dad.

Our seat was a length of board, with notches cut in each end....

Now when I am out, I cannot help but see trees and think what a great place to put swings, or a tree house. Some are just made for children...but swings in trees are very seldom seen these days. They are there in the corner of my mind though...just one of those thoughts that are a pleasant to think on.

Morning song

Every day we were home, I awoke each morning to incredible birdsong. I think you would have to be there to believe it. I did managed to capture a couple of the main ones--the mockingbird and the cardinal. I thought the above photo a catbird, but not so sure.
Even though this one of the cardinal is blurred, I still like it. It is a cropped portion of the original photo.
I did not manage to capture the wrens though, and I think they were the most vocal of all. They had babies somewhere but I could not find the nest...even though I was close to it. The first night there one was really scolding me....but after that no matter where I looked I got no reaction. But I did see it come from around the house carrying the messes from its nest....

I also saw a couple chickadees, indigo buntings, bluebirds, and two or three types of sparrows. Oh, and what I assume was a swallow of some kind had a nest under the eave of the garage. I could never see it for more than a few seconds.
***********
Roger and I have both been exhausted since getting home. Yesterday and today has been sunny and beautiful with bright blue skies. There is a chance of thunderstorms moving back in Saturday night...which is the last thing we need. I heard on our local news that farmers are so far behind in their planting because the ground is so saturated.

I also have a flip side to the piece I posted for yesterday, but it is so negative I just haven't had the heart to write it. One of these days I will though...just not now. I have for the most part put it behind me and would just as soon forget it, but feel like I would not be truthful if I didn't tell that side.