Hard work

Every where we went, we seen the familiar scene of hay bales and men hard at work. It is one hot and sweaty job, if you don't believe me ask my brother Neal. I would like to know how many bales of hay he and my other brothers handled in their lifetime. It would be way up in the thousands. They traded their muscle power for the use of of equipment....most of the time with either of one or two friends/neighbors.
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I am having major issues with blogger/commenting. There are three comments that I have checked to publish, blogger says they are published, and they will be there for just a short while, only for me to go back in just a bit and they are not longer there. I go back to comment moderation, and there they are again. I have went through this over and over, I don't know how many times. I don't know if it is cause I have the moderation on without word verification, or what. And there is a comment from George....I got the notice in my email, but it does not show at all in comment moderation section as waiting to be moderated. I get an error code with it. I have filed a report, but still no help. So, I once again changed my settings...comment moderation is still on, but only on older posts. So, if spam appears, I will eventually see it and remove it.

Just in time for the 4th of July

We were getting ready to go to Sarah's yesterday afternoon, and I happened to walk out to the garden. It is such a jungle that I have not been keeping close tabs on anything. But even in walking out there, I saw all these little cherry tomatoes just waiting for me to come get them. They were emmm-mmmm good!
I just had to show these of Lorelei and her daddy....they spent the night in Indianapolis Thursday night, and we stayed with Lorelei at their house. She was perfectly fine with us...had not been upset at all when it was just us there...
but I happened to see them when they got back and held the curtain back for Lorelei to see them walking in. Oh, the excitement! Mama....mama....DA-DA! Oh, was that girl every happy to see them.

Then our other daughter came home this weekend...and she spent a lot of time there. Yesterday eve when R. was leaving, Lorelei almost started crying...she loves her auntie.

Roger also makes this cheesecake pie...it is real simple. An 8 oz thing of creme cheese softened, a big bowl of cool whip, a big spoonful of sour cream, a tablespoon or so of real lemon flavoring, and some splenda...whip together and have a graham crust ready. Lorelei really loved that! Any of us that she seen eating it, she had to share.
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Some of you may have noticed that I turned off word verification...I also had turned off the moderation. Well, I have only had that all turned off a week or two, and already got spam. So, I am going back to moderating the comments, though I did not turn on the word verification. Just wanted you to know that your comment won't publish until I have had a chance to view it.

A million steps....

Any time I see a railroad, I have a yearning to walk it....and the view above, well almost the view above....I have looked at hundreds of times as I walked home from school. As have all my brothers and sisters. The biggest part of our walk home from school was on these tracks. Our grade school was a block or two from these tracks, and when we went to high school, we still had to walk down to Arthur to catch the bus.

Now, for me, I never had near the distance my brothers and sisters walked...I don't think I had a mile walk...maybe 3/4's of a mile, but I bet the walk for my brothers and sisters, was at least two miles before we moved from the old home place to the new house. They had a path through weeds...so I just know their feet had to start the day out wet. And if it rained too much, they could not get across the creek....

This is the new and updated railroad...when we walked it, it was not rock, but cinders, etc that filled in between the ties. I suppose there is a name for that, but I don't know what it is, unless it would be called the bed of the tracks. My socks always had coal dust in the wrinkles...it was a coal train that went up and down this track. It went up it once, and back down. No more, no less. Maybe every now and then there was something extra....and in the summer, they had a steam engine that gave people rides up to Cumberland Gap, maybe on to Middlesboro, KY, and back to Knoxville. Just one trip a summer. None of us ever got to take it...I don't even know if anyone else wanted to.

One of the things we sometimes did was try to walk the rail home without falling off. I don't know about everyone else, but I know I never quite accomplished that feat. I made it once or twice with only falling off once or twice...but I know that was the best I ever did. It is amazing that some of us did not get hurt...

The other thing, the railroad sat above the surrounding land for the most part...and the banks grew thick with bushes, briars, and honeysuckle to name a few. So thick one could not pass through them. So, you had to beware and listen for the train, and head to the nearest path down. Sometimes we had to hurry, and just wait, but if we were lucky, it was at a place that the path went down to a field and we could continue walking.

Only one time was there ever a close call for me. It was cold and windy...I had my hood up and my head down...not even looking up. I was by myself, and the train tooted. I swear, I don't think it was much over the length of a city block away. I don't mind telling you my heart jumped into my throat....if it had not tooted, I would never have heard it. Luckily, I was right at the train trestle and could get off by it.

We also walked down the railroad to go to the store and to the post office in summer, and we walked the railroad on up past our home to go to the barn (not far away), or if we wanted to go up to the old place, or to the tobacco patches. You'd see us walking down the road, with a hoe over our shoulder.

When we go home, I know Neal and I always walk the railroad...either to get up to the old place or down to Arthur.

Anyway, I bet our family has easily taken a million steps on those tracks that ran by home.

Sometimes when I am drifting off to sleep, I will hear a train blow its horn here...and just for a moment I am back in bed at home. It has to be the right tone, and sometimes I think it has to be a certain type of weather for it to be the right tone to make me think I am home again. But just FYI, I have never lived where I could not hear a train, and most of the time within sight of the tracks.

Us and the one family of neighbors, it is a common last name, but I won't say it...anyway, besides us, they are the only ones I ever remember really using the railroads a lot. Now, I suppose you would be fined if they caught you walking on them up here. And that because if someone got hurt, they would probably sue the railroad. I often see No Trespassing signs, but that is usually by overpasses. I have not noticed them at home, but maybe it is cause I haven't been paying attention.