Tuesday April 13th 2010

Today is the day to head back to Mississippi.  After getting up a little late and getting packed and making sure everything is turned off we finally got on the road about 10AM.  Beautiful day, it’s supposed to get warm.  We had plans to stop in New Madrid and apply for our passports but we were a little late and figured we wouldn’t be going out of the country anytime soon so we decided to boogie on down the road.  We filled up with gas around Caruthersville before leaving Missouri.  $2.58 a gallon and as soon as we got into Arkansas it went to $2.70.  Jackson, Mississippi was $2.62. Not bad.  Anyway, we were going through Memphis and we decided to go a little out of the way and go see Vicksburg.  That was about 3 hours out of the way and instead of getting to Aunt Virgie’s at 6 is was after 9 when we got there.

 

This was the highlight of our trip down, “Back Yard Burgers”.  Not really, it was OK but probably won’t stop again.

This is a “no no”.  I took this picture of a cornfield while driving.  The farther south we drove the taller the corn was.  That is amazing.

I took a lot of pictures of the battlefield but will only put a few in the blog. After seeing the terrain here I can’t hardly see how they fought!  Getting around in the forest and steep hills would have been terribly hard.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the Illinois monument.  Forty two steps, one for each day the battle lasted.  There were thousands killed and injured in this battle….WHY????  I think Rodney King had a good line..”Can’t we all just get along?”

Ulysses S. Grant statue.

 

This statue commemorates the Africans from Mississippi.  All Mississippi regiments were African.  I thought this was great. They don’t get a lot of recognition for all they did and the lives that were given for these battles.  

This is the USS Cairo, sunk on the Yazoo River.  This ship is not small!  It was late and we didn’t get to go explore the ship.  The Navy had a big part in this war and our friend Dale has written a book on the Marines that also took part in the Civil War.  I didn’t even know the Marines existed then, but that is me.  I am not a Civil War buff, but if anyone wants to read this book it is on Amazon.com  and is called the “The Forgotten Marines” by Dale Sumner.  Very good book.  It may be on “lulu.com” now I can’t remember. The drive was long and we made it to Virgie’s about 9:20 and she was ready for bed, can’t blame her, we were over 3 hours late!!!  Sorry Virgie!!

Monday April 12th 2010

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do His commandments; his praise endures forever.” Ps 111-10….HUMMMM  Very interesting.

Bet you can’t guess where I’m at here???  OK I’m at the Post Office.  We are heading back to Carriere tomorrow for an undetermined length of time. Our camper is in Picayune awaiting parts.  We had our mail stopped so our mailbox wouldn’t be full when we returned.

Aldi’s is one of our (my) favorite grocery stores.  It is European owned but they have good products and pretty good prices.  See the grocery carts? Don’t see any in the parking lot do you?  You have to pay a quarter to get one and most people want their quarter back which they get when they are finished.  Ingenious!!  I think all stores should do that especially Wal-Mart.

OH YEAH!!!  These are two of the Azalea plants I planted last week.  They look like they are going to do OK.  Lots of blossoms already.  The bottom one is the Elsie Lee Pu.  Looks like a very light pink.  I think this week or next week is the Azalea and Dog Wood Festival in Charleston MO.  They have some beautiful Azaleas over there.  Worth going to see.

We have a lot of packing to do and getting the house ready for a length of stay without use being here.  I mowed the lawn and mowed Daniels also.  I used my mower this time it’s OK if you tell him that.  My mower steers so much easier even though it doesn’t run quite as well or mow quite as well but I’m not sore this morning.   Bye yall….

Sunday April 11th 2010

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.   1 John 2:15   “And the world will pass away and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abideth forever.”  1 John 2:17    This was part of our Sunday School scripture.  I think it relates to the scripture I put in here on Friday, Ps  96: 4-6.  The Lord is Great and worthy of all praise…

Today is a great day for the farmers.  They were out in force in the fields and on the roads..  Took a few pictures…

These were just a few of the tractors and sprayers going to different fields.

  The person on the left is the pilot and the one on the right is the guy that rides on the rail.  They were just stopping for lunch and were willing to stand still for the picture.  They were very nice and explained a little of what they were doing, very interesting.

Had to get this again, I think the pilot is amazing, the skill it takes to hover in one spot for 20 or 30 minutes with a guy on the rail working on high voltage wire!!  They said the lines were de-energized though and they were putting up rollers to string new wire.  My hat’s off to them…

Wanted to get a picture of Pastor Randy and his wife Coyita.  Their wedding anniversary is the day before Linda’s and mine!  (1972)

This is Sonny and Clydie.  Sonny and Clydie are retired farmers.  Sonny is our Sunday School teacher and song leader.  He has an amazing testimony.

I had to hurry to get this sunset.  It is hard to believe how fast the sun moves!  This is just another one of God’s awesome wonders.  Had a great day today….Love yalll..

Saturday April 10th 2010

Beautiful day today, not going to do much, stay home, relax and wait.  Guess we are waiting for a call from Paw Paw’s about our camper.  Well, we probably won’t get one today.  Wrong..well, I think it was this morning they called and said they had gotten an email on Wednesday and Gulfstream was waiting on the vendors to ship the parts that were ordered.  They said it would probably be another 2 weeks and Paw Paw’s said it would only take a couple days to install the parts when they arrived.  We are going back Tuesday and will wait for them to finish it. 

Linda and I played a few different games on the Wii.  We tried shuffle board and it was pretty good and Bache Ball and that is a good game.  Oh, we tried Put Put Golf.  It is fun but can’t get the golf club to swing when I want it to.  More practice I guess. 

 

Seeing that this is Sunday (I’m a day late) I will have more pictures tomorrow.  Got a good one for tomorrow!!!  Love it….Bye yall….

Friday April 9th 2010

“It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto Thy name, O most High”   Ps 92:1  Read this this morning and thought it really fit into this day…I also found another one….

”The Lord is great and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods, for all of the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens.”  Ps 96:4-5.  This is something to think on.  We don’t have much, but what we do have is from the Lord and we enjoy life because He gave it to us.  HE IS OUR GOD!!  WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.

I cleaned out most of the dead branches from the Azalea bush, and let me tell you they are brittle and sharp.  Hopefully it will keep on growing, and flower.  Hope the new ones grow and flower also.

These are our garage doors and they need another coat of paint, well the whole garage could use another coat of paint, but I wanted to do some artistic work on these doors so they don’t look so “blah”.  I thought that I could paint a great big “Smiley Face” on each door, bright yellow of course, and one a male and the other a female!!!   Linda won’t let me do it. Can’t figure out why???  I see my planter is growing a nice green weed.  We usually plant petunias in them but probably won’t do it this year since we won’t be here. 

We had a nice quiet day today, I sat out on the porch in a lawn chair and kind of dozed for awhile.  It is sunny and just beautiful today.  Warming trend for the next week and no rain in the forecast, so the farmers will be out in the fields soon.  yall have a great Spring……Bye

Thursday April 8th 2010

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it… I’m glad. The weather doesn’t look good out, it is cloudy, windy and pretty chilly.  I definitely have things I should get done.  After doing my reading I posted my blog.  Usually I write it the day after, which is what I am doing now.  Today is actually Friday but I have all the pictures from yesterday etc.   I happened to read the flyer from Lowes and they have Azalea bushes on sale for $1.88!   I like Azaleas, we have one but I think it got some weed killer on it but it is starting to come back.  Had to stop at McDonalds for coffee and wifi then on to Lowes.  I picked out 4 different colors (I think).  They are red, pink, white and lee pu, what ever that is.  When I got home it was time to mow the lawn so I used Daniel’s mower, don’t tell him OK?  I will use mine from now on I think, his runs better and mows better but steering and shifting really made me sore.  Lawns look better now though.

Remember these trees?  I have a solution!!!!

Mighty Mac “the SAW” and I will shiver the timbers   AARRRR…  I can see them shaking now:-)

Looking good!!  Now I won’t feel like Absalom when I mow under the trees. Well, my hair isn’t as long as his was though.

Don’t I look so happy planting our Azaleas??

I bought 10 plants and this is about the 4th one.  The bush that looks like it is dead is our other Azalea.  I have my coat on and a sweater and I am really sweating but I want to get done before taking a break.

I heard this funny noise outside and when I looked I had to run and get the camera, I thought this helicopter was stuck in the power lines.  It wasn’t.  They are working on them.  That pilot had to be really good holding that copter in one place for a long period of time and the wind is blowing about 10-15 miles and hour with gusts over 20.

Got a picture of them coming in for a landing just down the road from us.

The wind was out of the north and I could smell the fumes from the engine, love the smell of burnt jet fuel.  I had a great time watching and admiring the skill of the pilot and courage of the man doing the work sitting on the rail working with mega volts.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful.  I had to rest up,  I was sore all over, mostly from the mowing….have a great one yall…

Wednesday April 7th 2010

Wanted to get a picture of our Lilac Bush!!  Exciting isn’t it??  I like our lilac bush, it is very small, about 5 or 6 feet tall but I really like lilacs.  They don’t last long but I usually pick about 2 bunches before they finally are done for the season.  I like the bush even with the leaves, I think it looks pretty good, now the yellow bush, I don’t like it after the yellow is gone, it looks bad (to me).

Now this tree, or bush, in the center had some really bad damage from the ice storm and I had to cut both limbs off but in a couple of weeks it will look very good.  The branches really fill out with leaves.  I will take another picture before heading to Branson.  The bush on the right side is the beautiful yellow bush, kind of like the “Ugly Duckling” in reverse. 

I think these 2 pine trees are Cedars but I”m not sure.  I do know that they are really hard to mow around.  You probably notice they don’t go all the way to the ground (the branches I mean) and they hang low enough for me to get knocked off the tractor (almost).  Me and “Mighty Mac” will do a little trimming on them tomorrow I think.   The grass I planted 2 years ago leaves a little to be desired.  I planted a mixture of fescue and Kentucky Blue Grass.  The blue grass is what is growing the rest is dormant during the winter.  I shouldn’t have mixed them but I didn’t know.

We didn’t do much today, it is still warm and supposed to rain tonight.  I went to church tonight and sure enough it’s raining.  I got to sit through a business meeting and I don’t even belong to the church.  Was kind of interesting though.

Well, back at home we watched TV until bed time, Linda fixed some tacos which were really good.  Bed time…..Later  yall….