Spring is not only in the air - it’s here!  My favorite season of the year.  The weather so far this weekend has been phenomenal.  RT and I went to Lowe’s on Friday and bought blueberry bushes, blackberry bushes, rose bushes, apple trees, and pear trees.  We also got some gladiola bulbs and some lilies.  I’m really excited about having a small rose garden again.  And I think our little orchard will be wonderful.  The challenge will be keeping the deer from eating everything.

Even before we moved into our new home last October, we religiously kept the local birds well fed.  We set up bird feeders all over the backyard while the house was still in construction.  And now,  we’re still at it.  Each day RT refills the bird feeders, and immediately all the chickadees, gold finches, woodpeckers, cardinals, and other birds descend on the feeders.  They’re beautiful, and we never tire of looking at them.  We have our bird books and our Meade binoculars nearby so we can identify each bird easily.  We have a bird log that we keep saying we will start writing the date and identity of the birds that we see at our feeders.  RT kept a bird log with his grandmother many years ago, and he has fond memories of keeping track of the birds at his home feeders.

Anacortes Telescope and Wild Bird is a company that sells all the popular brands of telescopes and binoculars - including Celestron, Meade and Bushnell.   And that reminds me of our next adventure - buying a telescope.  Since we live on top of a hill and out from the city, I think we could probably enjoy some incredible stargazing adventures.  Anacortes Telescope and Wild Bird also sells all kinds of bird feeders and bird foods, clothing, supplies and accessories.   They have books, cameras and videos  related to bird-watching or star-watching.   Click on over and check it out.

I told RT that he’s going to be like Grandma Moses and wait until his later years to give his artistic and creative side full rein.  Here is this morning’s poem - inspired by watching the birds on the bird feeders outside out family room windows:

 The past few mornings, RT has walked to the bottom of the hill behind our house where the West Harpeth River winds through a corner of our property.  There he has discovered a group of river otters.   He took the above picture this morning.  When we were in Alaska last year, we both enjoyed SO much watching the otters playing in the ocean.  So we’re thrilled that we have otters practically in our back yard here in Tennessee.  Saturday morning I’m going to the river with RT to see them for myself.

Up until this morning, RT and I planned on flying to GA today to spend a couple days with my mother, and then to his mother’s house for Saturday and Sunday.  However, last night RT mentioned that he had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling well.  My first question to him when we woke up this morning was, “How are you feeling?”  The response was, “Not good.”  He thought he might have strep throat and was definitely feeling flu-y.  So…change of plans.

I immediately started a pot of chicken soup, and since I can’t imagine Thanksgving without some homemade cornbread dressing, I started making cornbread for that. 

We noticed that our son’s truck was parked beside the barn.  That meant that he had driven over to go hunting.  So later in the morning when he was finished hunting, he came by the house, and I made some oatmeal for him.  He sat and visited for awhile before heading back to his house to celebrate Thanksgiving with his wife and her family.  His visit reminded me of years ago when RT’s father was alive when RT, his two brothers and his father would all get up early on Thanksgiving morning and go hunting.  Then they’d come back to the house and talk about their experiences - what they saw and where they’d go hunting the next time.  So it was nice having our son here this morning and then having him sit and visit and chat about hunting with RT and then visit for awhile.

For lunch RT and I had some of the soup.  For an early dinner, we had roasted chicken (thanks to Kroger that was open for a few hours and had freshly roasted chickens) and the cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce.  I hate to admit it, but my cornbread dressing was merely “okay.” It just wasn’t the wonderful dressing I’m accustomed to.  I wish I could have had some of my mother’s dressing.  But it was okay - the chicken and dressing and cranberry sauce made things a little more festive and like Thanksgiving. 

Then RT and I took a short walk along the ridge beside our house.  It’s amazing how much we can see of the river area below now that most of the leaves are off the trees.  The air was cold and crisp, and the walk felt good.

It wasn’t the Thanksgiving Day we had planned, but it was a very good Thanksgiving.

Who would’ve ever thought TMS would go gun-shopping, but that’s exactly what I did today.  Right after we took the grandgirls back to their parents this morning, RT and I headed to a skeet range where we had shooting lessons.  I’ve shot skeet before, and it really is fun - along with being a challenge.  I did okay, too - I probably was about 50% - hitting as many as I missed.   At one point, the instructor said that he liked working with women because they generally haven’t shot enough to need to un-learn incorrect ways of shooting.  He then jokingly said that the worst students are guys like RT - “Old guys with bad habits.”  I loved it!  Now anytime RT does something not quite up to par (i.e. leaving his dirty clothes on the floor, not putting away his dishes), I can just remind him that he’s an OGWBH. 

After the shooting lesson, we had a quick lunch, and then it was off to the gun store to buy a gun for me.  Lord have mercy!  Have you ever been in a gun store.? First of all, it was a huge place.  Second, it was crowded.  Lots of people were looking to buy guns.  I ended up buying a “youth” 20-gauge shotgun because my arms aren’t long enough to handle even the smaller adult shotguns.  The salesman called me “petite” which is a word I’ve never heard to describe me.  I guess my hands and arms are on the short side, though. The shotgun we bought felt good in my hands and against my shoulder.  I think it’ll be easier and more accurate to shoot than the instructor’s gun I used during the lesson this morning.

I had to fill out all kinds of information in order to buy the gun - fill out a questionnaire (which seemed silly because would an illegal alien check that he was indeed an illegal alien? Or a person who has had a restraining order against him, admit it?)  I had to give them two thumbprints - and they had to call and do a quick background check on me.  I passed all the checks, and left with a new shotgun, shotgun case and a shell holder to put on my belt.  This afternoon RT and I will practice skeet shooting again.

All in all an enjoyable morning.

School is out today - for the children.  Teachers are in meetings all day.  One good thing about teachers’ meetings is that we get an hour lunch.  I drove home quickly to let Jake (our black, British lab) out since I forgot to let him out earlier this morning when I was getting dressed.   I figured he’d have about 30 minutes to run around while I ate a quick sandwich at home.  As I drove into the driveway, this is what I saw alongside the drive - something we see almost every day:

They ARE beautiful, aren’t they?  There was another one to the left of these, but I couldn’t get him in the photograph because of bushes.  I took the photo from the car window.

Then, after I pulled up at the house, I saw the following along the back walkway.  I had been meaning to take a photo of them because, after all, how often do you see azaleas blooming in November?  Our son - the landscaper - selected these azaleas for us because they’re named “Encore” azaleas, and they bloom twice a year - in the spring and in the fall.   These have done more than bloom twice.  They’ve been in almost constant bloom since they were planted in July.  There are about seven bushes - each blooming as beautifully as this one.  Gorgeous, aren’t they?

I’ve found that moving can make one’s world quite small.  Things are disconnected at the old house, and we must wait for them to be re-connected at the new house.  The DirecTV folks won’t be at the new house until later today.  That makes almost two week’s we’ve gone without watching TV.  Quite honestly, I haven’t missed it much.  It has made me realize how much of a habit it is to watch certain shows.  It’s not that the shows are so enormously entertaining.  It’s just that we were accustomed to eating dinner and then watching TV - whatever was on.  A similar thing happened with the Internet.   We had DSL problems at the old house that left me internet-less at home for over two months.  I was starting a new job.  So I sure wasn’t going to blog from work.  Now at the new house, we have a high-speed connection again, but I don’t have my computer yet.  So I borrow RT’s when I need to.  Last night, for the first time in months,  I spent about 5 hours working on a project online - and it was nice.  I read blogs that I would normally not read, and I had a blast.  The only negative was that I didn’t get to bed until after 1:30 this morning.  Once in awhile that’s okay.

So without TV and with no Internet for so long, I feel that my world has grown small.  RT and I have been doing more reading.  We’ve taken more walks.  We’ve worked on the house.  I haven’t been able to easily keep up with what’s going on in the world well enough to know of anything beyond my small world to blog about.  I’ve yearned to blog, but my topics of interest have been narrowed down to things related to our moving.

TV will be restored by this evening.  My new wireless computer will arrive later this week, and by the weekend we will once more be connected to the rest of the world.  For now, though, it’s comforting to remain small for a few hours longer.

Yesterday morning when I awoke, I looked out one of the front windows and watched a flock of wild turkeys pecking at seeds through the pinestraw near the driveway.  I looked out a side window and watched four young deer eating acorns under an oak tree.  On the day we moved in last week, a beautiful bald eagle flew directly over our new home, and each day I watch a myriad of birds at our birdfeeders - black-capped chickadees, tufted titmouse, nuthatches, gold finches - and even an occasional red-headed woodpecker.   We are definitely living in the midst of beautiful wildlife.

One of my goals is to photograph all the wonders of nature around me.

RT and I played 9 holes of golf yesterday afternoon with our son.  What fun!  My score for nine holes was 63.  It’s one of the few times I’ve kept an accurate score.  I tend to skip holes occasionally or give up on a hole after a few swings.  I actually made par on hole two, had a couple bogies and two double-bogies (which, for me, is excellent).  On hole #8, I kept “hitting the big ball before hitting the small ball” and ended up with TWELVE strokes on that one hole.  Other than that, though, I had a good game.  The last hole is over water — and my first ball went right into the water.  The second made it over, though - and I was thrilled about that.  The best aspect of playing golf - other than being outside on a beautiful day - was being with RT and Joey.  They both are so funny.  We laughed and joked around the whole time.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a good day.  Sunday School and church in the morning with the two grandkids, then lunch with our entire little family (daughter, son-in-law, son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters), then the game of golf followed by a quick walk on the land.  A very good day.