Our humble abode

I was reading this book by Richard Lemieux "Breakfast at Sally's" and realized how much I have to be thankful for. Kelly and Leah are just wonderful, and my Beloved Debbie makes me feel I have found my soul mate.
We have a quiet and peaceful home that is always clean and organized thanks mainly to Debbie. Hey! I'm a pretty clean and organized person myself. Nevertheless, I give Debbie credit for a beautiful abode.
Anytime I want to, I can go to a deep place within myself where I only find the Peace and Love I want and be totally contented no matter what is happening. The bottom fell out of real estate, the business I'm in, but do you complain and mourn, or do you count your blessings?
If I loose all material things out of an unexpected turn of events, but still have Debbie-Kelly-Leah, I will smile and count my blessings one more time. Can you count your blessings?
P.S. Remember to click on the collage pics to see it.

Debbie vegetable garden

It started out with a portion of the backyard. It had to be weeded out, tilled, and prepared for seeding.
This is the result in about five weeks time. Quite amazing! Debbie did have to do some gardening: watering, controlling bugs in the most organic way she could, rearranging the vegetables around, you name it; she did it. I did do one thing too, actually. When the squash leaves starting dying before we even had any squash, I talked to the plants in a whispering voice and they quit dying. I knew they would listen. I pretty much told them not to let my Debbie down and not to make a fool of themselves.
Some jalapeno peppers. We also had radishes, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, green peppers, and lots and lots of squashes.
A basket of vegetables from Debbie's garden. She got the green thumb!

Picnic at Oconee National Forest

Debbie, Kelly and I went for a picnic by a creek at the Oconee National Forest yesterday. Everything seemed to have worked out perfect. We wanted to be in the quiet of nature by the water. We set up out site right by the creek where we can hear the water running. Then, we moved our chairs in the water to fully enjoy it while listening to nature. We walked in the creek, heard and saw our share of birds. It seems like some of nature's greatest gifts are free!
P.S. Please, do click on this collage to better enjoy these pictures, especially the top middle one. Isn't that just beautiful? So, it was.

Primitive Camping

We went primitive camping this past week-end. It turned out to be a week-end of relaxation for us in nature with no one around.
I was feeling sick so I soaked in nature totally and just enjoyed myself. Sure, I was coughing the whole time, but that just kept the animals away! Except for the Chuck-Will's-Widow and the Whip-Poor-Wills who sang all night long. Every night, actually. It didn't bother us. We just smiled every time we would wake up and hear these birds. This is the woods!!!

This is our site: the bedroom is the red and white tent in the background, the bathroom is to the right, the canopy on the left serves as dining room/living room, the truck is usually part of our setting as additional table and storage, and all the area in the square is our living room/dining room/sitting area/observation post/camp site or whatever we want it to be.
This is our bathroom. Yes, you bring your own for primitive camping if you don't want to dig a trench. Debbie is checking out the shower before using it. A "portable solar shower" gave us warm water. Our "commode" is to the right. It worked real good with everything we brought to "control" odor. These "portable toilets" are designed pretty decent nowadays.
We figured out one thing; we'll trade the little inconvenience of not having "modern" bathrooms and hot shower of State Parks for the quiet and peace that you get in a primitive camping setting. Well, if you didn't want to bother reading my long sentence again, I simply meant that I rather bring my own bathroom and warm water than put up with noisy neighbors at State Parks.


A walk in the wood. I saw a SUMMER TANAGER there. A truly pretty red bird. He just sat on a branch and let me watch him until my hands starting getting tired of holding the binoculars. The next day, he came to pay us a short visit at the camp site so Debbie could meet him also.
When I get a better digital camera, I will start showing you all the pretty birds.
Yes, my friends, camp fire under a full moon. Did we have a good time? Trust me on this, we did! And I'm ready to go back, with my Beloved.

The friendly King Snakes

We ran into two King snakes on the path at our recent visit at the Ocmulgee Mound (see the post down with Duane and Connie's visit).

We believe these two snakes were mating earlier but we couldn't really ask them what they were doing there together.

They were quite big actually. But friendly. I touched one, quickly, and gently.
Duane picked up the other one. The snake was so scarred he pissed on Duane. Fortunately, Duane put some gloves on first.


Leah is running down the part of the Swamp I love the most. My little heaven, shaded, peaceful, and the birds tend to sing the best around here. This is also the area you'll see deer most often. If you want to, you can just have many happy thoughts here as you walk by in God's nature garden. I miss Debbie not being with us on this day. She was sick and getting better slowly but surely.

The friendly butterfly

Leah loves butterflies. After a little help from Duane, Leah got a butterfly on her.

The butterfly wants to be Leah's friend and was quite unafraid and didn't really want to leave.

She got on Leah's finger, shoulder, nose, and finished her visit on Duane's head.

At the Ocmulgee Swamp

It turned to be a great day for visiting the swamp.


Beside the turtles and snakes, we saw two Red Shouldered Hawks, Great Blue Herons, and the Great White Egrets. We heard the Pileated Woodpeckers a few times but never saw them this time.
The Indigo Buntings were there, singing their hearts out to impress everyone.
As usual, we saw several Red Headed Woodpeckers, Northern Cardinals, and Eastern Phoebes. We also saw many other birds including different Sparrows, Thrushes, Chickadees, and Flycatchers.
Duane and Connie seem to have liked the place with its peaceful walks, especially at the Loop. We encountered two nice King Snakes. I touched one briefly and gently, and Duane picked up the other one gently, then put it back down so he can return to his mating business (the snake, not Duane). They were non-aggressive for the most part.
The sky was beautiful, the birds were singing, the water was flowing happily after the multiple rains we had; but it was hot.

We enjoyed it.