Monday, December 25, 2017

Snow, fog, and a rock

We got snow-ed!
A couple of inches here, up to 10" elsewhere, records for Alabama:
Was really pretty:
Per my heritage, I made a snowman:
Poor brother Mal had to drive through it, but we had a great visit with him:
Following in Dad’s footsteps, we ate dinner in 30 seconds:


We visited an historic pig iron furnace. Birmingham was a big steel town back in the day, lots of iron in near by hills:
Some of the rocks in our back yard are tinged red with iron, at least that is what I’m told (our family is red-green color blind). Even without seeing the red, these rocks have character. We call this one ‘face guy’:
I call this photo ‘guy in an eye’. (a selfie reflected in a post appointment dilated eye):
This one ‘guy and dog’ shadow selfie:
And this one ‘gal and the splayed out dog’:
No tree disasters to report this month. I’ve restricted my chainsaw usage to cutting toast and potatoes:
Working on a project to put in valves for remote control the creek fountains:
The house renovation has moved into the middle master bedroom. Carpet and yellow paint are gone, will be starting laminate flooring next week:
Lastly, a recent fog looked really pretty with the backyard lighting:
Bruce

Friday, December 01, 2017

Bridge up, Trees down

Fall is trail building season in Alabama. I’ve added about 200' of new trail so far, including a new bridge over non-troubled water. The 12' lumber was a tight fit for our 10' car:


Doggy inspected and approved:
We discovered in Utah that hot tubing often improves sleep, so used that for an excuse to install one here. After looking at where we wanted to put it, the installers encouraged us to opt for a smaller 2–3 person tub:
Even with 5 strong guys, that smaller tub was pretty tricky, video highlights here:

But it was worth it. Our night time view is pretty unique:
Dogs like it also, except when they fall in:
Really enjoying the Fall foliage:
That last tree is one of the 7 trees that was in between our highest trail rock bench and a beautiful vista, so I bought an electric chainsaw and had some fun. Before and after shots:
A couple of the trees gave us some trouble. We survived, but our power lines did not, highlights here:


In more boring news, I did some more painting, worked my way downstairs. Loving the white paint:
You know how you can cut off a part of a plant, replant it, and sometimes it re-grows? We discovered, not surprisingly, that doesn’t work with cactus. They deflate like the Wicked Witch of the West:
The blue critters are doing the Wizard of Oz ‘Wicked Witch is Dead’ dance. Like me, they don’t like cacti much.
Closing with a photo of a bee at an ant massage parlor:
Bruce