I learned a little horticultural information today. In Lillian’s yard, she has a Sasanqua bush - which is a type of camellia, I believe. It is also a plant I’ve never heard of before. I don’t recall even seeing the word “sasanqua” before. Here is a photo of the sasanqua blooming in her yard now.

Lillian’s Sasanqua

And here are some more pansy photos to enjoy.

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I’ve enjoyed taking some photographs the past couple days while I’ve been in Georgia. I plan to take many more the next two days as well.

A mirrored lake
I took this photograph just this afternoon. RT and I were taking a walk on his land. This L-shaped lake is on the property. The mirroring immediately caught my attention. Isn’t it beautiful?

RT’s mother, Lillian, has a green thumb. Tomorrow I’m going to take a walk all around her yard and take pictures of all the gorgeous plants she has. In the meantime, though, look at these two photos from her yard:

Pansies along the driveway

Persimmon tree loaded with fruit

Here are more pictures from RT’s and my walks:

The Forked Tree

X marks the spot

This next photo is my favorite. RT and I were driving down the dirt road next to his property when I saw this tree. The branches were covered with moss and it looked like octopus arms sticking out from the trunk. Of course I decided to call it the octopus tree.

Octopus Tree

Pine Cones

Red Berries

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I had just poured my zillioneth glass of orange juice (gotta get that vitamin C, you know) and moseyed over to the front window. Earlier this morning - just at daybreak - I had watched four does eat their way across our front yard — nosing through the pine straw and undergrowth to get at nuts. It was barely daylight and they were mostly shadowy figures moving through the yard.

A couple hours later, OJ in hand, I looked out the front window again and this is what I saw:

A 6-point buck in the front yard on November 11, 2008

Now I’m heading off to the jacuzzi - going to relax and let the steam work on my sinuses. Then I’m going to head outside for a walk - and hopefully that’ll make me feel good enoiugh to go to work tomorrow.

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Staying home sick today - possibly tomorrow, too. Feeling a little worse than yesterday. So I’m sitting in the recliner, laptop in my lap and a down comforter wrapped around me. Television is generally a waste of time, although I’m watching to see when the Obamas arrive at the White House to see their future home. Ahhhh - just found out it won’t happen until one o’clock this afternoon (Central). So NOW is nap time for Carol.

In the meantime, I’ve played around with some photography this morning - nothing that would get me more than a few feet out of the house. Maybe this afternoon I’ll take a walk and get some nature photos out in the woods. Enjoy.

Looking out the front door:

Pansies in a planter on the front porch:

Part of the front yard with the driveway in the background:

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I’ve been outside a lot today. RT and I took a long walk through our property - over the hills and through the wood. Along the side of our driveway I have some rose bushes planted, and despite a couple of mild frosts, they are still beautiful. Look at these pictures I took awhile ago:

RT is heading out to do some skeet shooting, and I am heading in to take a nap. I woke up around 4:45 this morning - wide awake and have been going strong ever since. Around 5:30 this morning, as I was reading blogs, I came across a recipe for “baked oatmeal.” It sounded so good that I made some for our breakfast. I ended up putting the recipe on my recipe blog, Cabbie’s Cooking. It was ever bit as good as it sounded. I’ll be making it again.

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What a gloriously beautiful day! Among the things in nature I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks are the sunflowers that have sprung up around the bird feeders. The birds apparently scatter plenty of seeds on the ground, many of those seeds go uneaten. This morning I went outside to take a picture of them, and I immediately noticed all the bees feasting on one particular sunflower. Here it is:

What a wonderful world we live in! So many beautiful sights! I then came inside the house and photographed the plant we have on our kitchen table. I have no idea what kind of plant it is, but the blooms are gorgeous. Don’t you agree?

Makes me yearn for a little Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World!” Enjoy.

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I’ve decided what I want for Mother’s Day.  I want one or two digital photo frames.  They are so cool, and since so many of my photos are already digital, it would be easy to set up.  I’d put one on the bookshelves beside the fireplace, and the other one in my bedroom.  Digital frames make fantastic gifts for anybody  family, friends and colleagues.  As a matter of fact, just think what an easy yet wonderful gift they’d make.  You could handle practically all your Christmas shopping for next year with just a few clicks of the computer mouse.

Just think how great a digital photo frame would be for a business, too - displaying advertising and promotions.  And Digital Frames Direct is the biggest digital frame wholesaler in the UK.  Check out Digital Frames Direct to see the wide variety of digital frames that are available.  There’s lot of information on the website, too, that’ll help you make informed choices about purchasing digital photo frames.

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We don’t get a lot of snow here in middle Tennessee.  Last night and this morning we got the biggest snow in five years.  That means we got between four and six inches of snow.  Looking at our yard, I would say that in our yard we got around 3 inches.  Here are some photos - taken from my front and back porches - of our yard.

This first photo is of RT feeding the birds in our back yard.  In the foreground is our stack of firewood - covered with snow.

Taken from our front porch.  I like the look of the snow on the wrought iron rails on the front steps.

I thought the bushes looked pretty with the snow piled on top of them.

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This is a photo taken in the 1960’s when we lived in Ellijay, Georgia.  My mother made matching robes for all the girls in the family, and she also made matching robes for all the guys in the family.  Somewhere I have the photo of all the girls.  Here’s the photo of the guys in the family: my older brother, Terrell; my father, Charles; and my younger brother, David.  My goodness, but my father was a handsome man!  And Terrell and David were both cute kids - and have, in turn, become handsome men.

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Ha!  Don’t you love that title?  I found this photo on one of my disks.  These are all photos of me as a child.  The top left photo is of my brother,Terrell, my sister Janice and me when we lived in Wilmore, Kentucky on the campus of Asbury College where my father was going to school.  The top right photo is of my mother and me in the parsonage at 333 South 9th Street in Griffin, GA.  It was taken when my father was in seminary in Atlanta and was serving a three church charge (Midway, Sunnside and Vaughn Methodist Churches) in Griffin.The bottom photo is of me and my first grade teacher, Mrs. Landrum, at Fourth Ward Elementary School in Griffin, GA.  I LOVED Mrs. Landrum.  We’d have reading groups at the round “reading” table, and she’d put a little adhesive star on our foreheads when we read well.  I remember skipping out to the playground simply giddy with delight because I was sporting my reading star.  I had Mrs. Elder for second grade, and I don’t really remember much about her except there was a cloak room adjacent to the classroom, and it was a scary place.  Mrs. Giles, my third grade teacher was wretched.  That wasn’t a very good year.  For some reason, I have totally blocked out fourth, fifth and sixth grades - the grades I completed when we lived in Ellijay, Georgia.  I don’t remember those teachers at all, although I do remember some of my adventures at school.   I love these photos.

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