Holey, Wholly, Holy

Even though we are holey, our holy God wholly loves us.  There is no doubt in my mind that the English language can be quite confusing.  These homophones (holey, wholly, holy) sound the same but have different meanings and spellings.  It's enough to drive one crazy.

Saturday, while Joe took Maggie to the kennel, I worked at getting everything watered, including house plants, outdoor potted plants, new transplants and all the new grass and seed.  This was at least a two hour job.  The left photo shows a pine cone sitting beside a holey tree.  If you look closely, there is a second pine cone inside the hole.

When Courtney and Mike arrived, we had an early lunch and were then on the road for Cherokee, NC at noon. 

The trip went well except Courtney (and I, a little bit) got car sick during the eleven mile, 318 curves, of the world famous Dragon, a section of US highway 129.

This route was full of speeding motorcycles and many roadsters.  This aerial view (from the internet) gives you an idea of the curves.  The leaves and view out the car window were spectacular, but the curves did Courtney and I in... and it didn't help that Joe was driving like we were on a motorcycle and it felt like a roller coaster.

I didn't take this photo of the motorcycles, but it is what we saw on most of the road, which was one curve after another.

There were people with cameras sitting at various spots along the route, taking photos of most of the vehicles driving by.  Courtney found this picture of us in the SUV, that was posted on one of the Dragon photo web sites.  Wish they had gotten a photo of us going around a curve on two wheels.  Ha ha ha.

Once we got through the worst of the Smokey Mountains (off of The Dragon) and on to Highway 28, the ride was now on a two lane, divided road and much smoother.  Courtney and I were feeling better and started taking some scenic photos. 













Highway 28 follows the Little Tennessee River.  Courtney took the left photo which shows how low the water level was.  They are in a drought also.


We finally arrived at our 'quaint' little mountainside cabin (an airbnb) that was a dump.  Our cabin was this one in front.  The owners place is in the back ground.  The whole building was slanted (toward the down hill side of the mountain) and the floor boards were not even.  We had to put the SUV into 4-wheel drive to get up the road and drive, and then we had to park on the edge of a small cliff.  Yikes!  I was feeling car sick all over again.  LOL





Joe and I took a walk up the road past some abandoned homes.  This sign was painted on the shack behind our cabin, that was the owners 'art studio'.  Our accommodations were hippy love motif, and there were only lace curtains separating the two bedrooms and bathroom from the living area.







We were quick to leave our humble abode and head into town.  I took the photo of this abandoned hotel because it had these trees growing up through the balcony and roof.  We might have been better off staying here.  Just kidding.

All the nice restaurants were booked or full so we ended up at Granny's Kitchen, a little hole in the wall, not-so-good buffet.  But, it is difficult to mess up on salad, and I did really enjoy the roast beef.  We all managed to get our fill at any rate.

Next we went to Harrah Cherokee Casino (seen left) where we had tickets to a Styx concert.  I am not a rock-in-roll fan, so didn't recognize (or enjoy) most of their music, but the audience was having fun and the show and crowd were enjoyable to watch.

None of us got a good night of sleep and were all up fairly early Sunday.  I had risen and walked at 6:30.  We were quick to hit the road (about 8:30).  It was a little foggy in the mountains, hence their name, The Smokies.  We took I-40 home since we didn't have football traffic in Knoxville to avoid.  This was a much better route!

Courtney and I went to the barn while Mike stayed home to work on homework and Joe watched some football.

We put Amiga and Zorro in the cross ties and loved on / groomed them until they were wholly (every square inch) clean.




Zorro loves Courtney, especially when she scratches his ears (video).

We only stayed at the barn for an hour because C & M needed to get back to Nashville.  When Courtney turned Zorro back out into the pasture (video), he did not want to leave her.

A Girl and Her Horse:

Joe left for the employee Golf Tournament before we got back from the barn.

Courtney and Mike hit the road for home before 2:00 and I went outside to do a bunch of watering and then dig around.  I can't decide what to do about the leaves on the new grass.  I don't want them to 'smother' the new growth or block sunlight, but am afraid to try to use the leaf blower to remove them, or rake them, or mulch them with the mower.  The new grass needs to really take root and get established.





I planted these two Camellia, evergreen shrub that can get up to 8 feet high.  They are deer resistant and will eventually help hide the bench on the rock, making it feel more secluded sitting in the woods there.

There were Mountain Laurel leafed out and hiding the bench, but three of them have lost all their leaves.  I am hoping the drought has not killed them.  Seen left, the trunk / root of one of the Mountain Laurel that was knocked over before we moved here, and sticks up above the mulch and is a trip-a-factor.  So I put rocks around it.
Seen right, my first hurried attempt.



I later re-did the stack, and better like the looks of these rocks.  A close up shows the interesting contours of the top rock, and the mossy parts are also now visible.





"The earth is rocky and full of roots; it's clay, and it seems doomed and polluted, but you dig little holes for the ugly shriveled bulbs, throw in a handful of poppy seeds, and cover it all over, and you know you'll never see it again - it's death and clay and shrivel, and your hands are nicked from the rocks, your nails black with soil."  Anne Lamott

Joe didn't get home until after 6 pm.  His team placed first in the employee golf tournament, which he was happy about, even though the 'winnings' were only $5 each.  The golfers did all get free hotdogs.


Monday morning I spent a great deal of time here at my computer, catching up on Facebook, e-mail, and blogging.  The internet, to me, is kind of like a black hole.  I ate an early lunch, did a bunch of watering, and then headed to the barn.  Seen left, holy Oscar wholly holed up in the tack room.


Looking across the lawn in front of the stables (notice the dry grass) you can see smoke in the distance, from the Crab Orchard area.  I believe this is one of the four wildfires reported.





Amiga is still having mammary issues (swelling and leaking milk) but at least lameness was not a problem.  I only rode her for 30 minutes, and intend to do lots of short rides to build her muscles back up and strengthen her tendons and ligaments.  This pond continues to shrink in size.



Once back at the barn, I let Amiga graze on this long, lush, green grass that is by the log pile and hasn't been mowed.  There isn't much green grass in her pasture.  Below, I could still see smoke from the distant fire. 







When I got home, I planted one more bush out front, the half priced Rose of Sharon that I couldn't pass up at the store a few says earlier.  I found a spot for it in the front bed between the scraggly Asters that grew back from last fall.

Digging the hole was a bit of a problem because of a large tree root.  Also, I thought I had bought a purple flowering shrub, but when I went to take the tag off of it, it was marked Red Heart.  Rats.  This bed is planted wholly in reds, pinks and purples.  I am not a big fan of white.  Hopefully it was miss marked, because I thought it had a violet blossom on it.  If not, maybe the flower's red center will help, or I may end up moving this elsewhere.  Look at all the buds on it... can't wait to see what these look like.




I was out in back late, watering.  I am not watering the new grass every day, but have a bunch of new seed around the new bed and in bare spots in the lawn.  I had started the oven and Joe stuck the frozen banquet dinner in.  Making a salad while the chicken alfredo finished cooking, we ate at 7:15.  I then took Maggie on a long 'moon light' walk, except the moon wasn't high enough in the sky to light our way until we were nearing home, coming down the cart path of #18.


Tuesday I gave Brian's tomato plants one last watering (he was arriving home in the evening) and also decided to tie the ring cage stakes down because the plants kept blowing/falling over and pulling one side of the stakes out.  Of course, all my grass got a good watering too.







I started physical work out back at noon, deciding to do more digging in the creek bed and pond area.  Above, is looking up-stream at the creek bed I had widened, just before it takes a turn.  To the left, the widened turn in the creek and more dirt on the embankment to help contain water.  Below, widening still in progress, before the second turn into the pond.

Sister Carol had commented about a scientific study that showed that dirt is an antidepressant.  So, not only does moving dirt give me a physical workout, it helps my mood. :-)  As usual, I also found several golf balls buried in the muck.  I reached a good stopping point, and was tired and thirsty, so came in to refill my big water jug.







Seen here, our house on the left, and just how low the pond has gotten.  After refreshing from a short rest, I headed into un-walked roads in the Glade, with Maggie in tow.  I guess I didn't get any photos of this outing.  We got back at 6:00 and dark was quickly approaching.  I turned all the back lights on and watered till 7:15. 

Wednesday I was at the barn at 8:45, filling bins with manure.  Five of us ladies had planned to ride at about 9:30, so I got Amiga and readied her for the outing.  It was a slow relaxing morning with lots of chatter while grooming horses.  Then we hit the trail.  Seen right, I was in front, glancing back at Cheryl on Velvet and the three other ladies following Amiga and I.  Look at the dust!


Eventually, Jan on Cash took the lead (seen left), followed by Cheryl, then Jo on Chaco, and Jean on Shelby.  Amiga and I brought up the rear.

On the way back, Jan and I left the group and rode into the ghost town, but our horses did not fright because they are getting used to this array of scary objects.

We had a good, 45 minute ride, even though Jo had to bail off her horse when Chaco started throwing a bunch of bucks out in the open field we were riding around.  Jo is a tough lady, and luckily was not hurt.









After our ride, while all were untacking and continuing their chatter, I let Amiga eat more of the tall, yummy grass by the log pile.  Eventually, we five, and Natalie (a lady who moved here four months ago and is very interested in the horses), all went to lunch at Dorchester.

Arriving home at 12:40, I was quick to get out back to water and spread manure.  I also mowed the back yard, mulching leaves and cutting some of the new grass that is fairly well established.  I had Joe mow in front, bagging the clippings, and I spread them over the bare spots in back where the seed has not yet germinated.  This was the method I used (which worked quite well) to sow the seeds in the flat area by the pond, seen in the lower left of the right photo.





Lastly, I ended up digging around more, down in the pond, trying to clear the waterway of cattail and muck that has accumulated there.  Chatting with Roger earlier in the day, he said that when he moved here five years ago, the pond had no cattail at all.  We both like some down there, which has attracted waterfowl, but we can no longer see any water where there is so much vegetation.


So, I continued clearing this shallow (2 ft deep) hole for water to accumulate in, once we get rain.  When the pond fills back up, I will never be able to dig in this spot, so I am working hard at it now.  Seen right, more of the cliff rock continues to be exposed as the water level keeps on lowering.  It seems with less pond volume, the level decreases faster.  Joe had gone to his card game so I stayed outside late, watering after dark.  I didn't come in to shower until 7:30.  Beer and popcorn for dinner and I was in bed at 9:00, sore and dead tired.

Thursday morning was set aside for front ditch work.  Joe sucked all the leaves out of the ditch, saving the mulch as it accumulated in the bag.  I went behind Joe and removed the rock, gravel, dirt, and pine cones that had been left.  I forgot to get a before photo of the ditch, so looked back in my archives and found the photo on the left from a year ago when the water company was repairing a leak.  This ditch always fills up with debris but very little water actually runs through it.


We placed a 20 foot long, 6" drain pipe in the ditch and raked gravel from the hillside down on top of it.  Then I took the photo seen right.

Joe went to the Landscape store (twice) and brought home two full tractor scoops of river rock, using Brian's trailer.

We scooped and hoed the new gravel into place on the hill and finished filling in the rest of the ditch.  Left photo shows our completed work.  I needed to get more retaining block to finish the end where the big culvert pipe comes from under the road. 

After lunch, but before I could finish watering and then spread the diced leaves over the seed in back, a little pop-up shower hit.  Once it had cleared off, I went back out to complete spreading mulch.  Seen right, what the mulched (finely chopped leaves), thinly spread over the seeded yard, looked like by the time I was finished.







Again I decided now was my last chance to finish moving any pond dirt, so I removed another section of mud, leaves, and sand that had filled into this area.  Seen left, part of the next chunk of ground removed.  It was between 18 to 26 inches in depth.


It started sprinkling before I finished, yet I kept at the task.  Eventually it started coming down fairly steadily, but I stayed out in the rain until I got the pond hole wholly completed, (5:15) seen right.

The lower photo is looking towards the dam, viewing where I had cleared vegetation and dirt and where pond water should be. 





Seen below, I am standing in the dried up pond with the dam behind me and looking towards the creek entrance where most of the dirt removal occurred.
 





My hot shower felt extra good since I was cold from the drop in temperature and rain.  I was thankful I didn't have to water anymore for the day.  I sat here at my desk, looking out the window, and sipping hot tea.  Seen below is a panoramic view of the pond at the bottom of the hill outside my window.  Once the pond is full again, I hope this dug out area will be a little swimming / wading hole for fishes, turtles, water fowl and deer.  (The word fish can be used for singular or plural of same species of fish.  Fishes means more than one species of fish.)

Friday morning I worked at this blog and then went to the barn for a vet appointment.   The time with the vet went quickly and well.  Upon examination, Dr. Perry believes Amiga's udder swelling and leakage are being caused by hormonal changes.  He didn't think it was mastitis or an ovarian issue.  But I am to continue to monitor her glands and keep an eye out for any changes in them or in her behavior.  Both Amiga and Zorro got their shots.
Seen left, my flowers out front are doing well.

It was gloomy, windy and cold, with a high of 55, so I stayed inside the majority of the day.  I got some desk work done, including some filing and sending an email with a bunch of photos of our fireplace, to the fireplace store (actually three e-mails, because one, and even two would not hold all the photos).



Mid afternoon I took Maggie for a 90 minute walk on more of the Fairfield Glade roads.  Normally at this lake (Malvern), water is always flowing over the road (spillway).  With this summer's drought, Lake Malvern's water level is also much lower than normal.

Joe was off to another poker game for the evening so I had the place to myself, aside from the cat and dog.  Souped up Ramen Noodles (with onions, celery, carrots, and chicken) was dinner.


My blog title started with holes, because I was doing so much digging.  But then it evolved and now reminds me of one of my favorite hymns, Holy,Holy, Holy.  But it also brings to mind the chorus from the Phillips, Craig & Dean - Revelation Song.