Sunday in the Park

Yesterday's walk was at Ft. McAllister again.  The weather has just been gorgeous so walking is even better than usual.  We do a 2 mile walk every day and now that the weather has cooled down we  try to do an even longer one on Sunday.  So the walk through McAllister, with the Magnolia Trail thrown in, was about 4 1/2 - 5 miles, yes feet I can hear you, but it feels good to get out and walk somewhere different.  The sand on the trail was so fine we could see a raccoon's footprints, in addition to bike tracks.
Then yesterday afternoon and evening was football, football, football.  My team lost, again, they're so bad I may have to start wearing a bag on my head on Sundays!  But the Sunday night game was good.
Today I worked on Christmas presents, can't say too much because most of them are for my daughter.  They're going well, but as they say, the devil is in the details,  and the details are making me blind!
I always have trouble with allergies in the Fall and this year is no exception.  I'm sneezing my head off and my eyes are really bothering me.  So having to look very carefully at what I'm sewing can be aggravating.
But the weather is so nice I will not complain.  I didn't get outside today, dirty house trumped lovely garden unfortunately.  Mac worked on the putting green though and he says we're getting closer to our Fall Invitational.

Tee Time

About 5 years ago Mac made us a small putting green in the backyard.  Now neither of us is a golfer, though we'll watch a bit of it on tv, but we thought it might be fun to play a little pitch and putt.  And that's what we do, in the spring and fall, in the summer it's too hot to do much of anything in our yard.  So the weeds take over the rock edging he put around the green.  About twice a year I'll go out and pull all the weeds and you're  to see the green again.
 This year it really got overgrown and I could barely make out the shape of it.  But I sat out there this morning and started pulling the weeds out of the rocks before the sun drove me in.  They predicted that it would only be in the 70's today, and windy, because there was a cold front passing through, HA!, but it's much closer to 80 than 70 and I felt like I was frying my brain.
Plus the ground was as hard as a rock!  We haven't had any rain since the end of September and they're saying we don't have any coming in the next 8-10 days, so Mac has set the sprinkler up to see if he can soften the ground for me.  Anyway, I took a picture, see if you can spot the putting green.

Time Well Spent

I woke up stiff, sore and as I call it "gruntled", not disgruntled.  Mac says it's the change in seasons and he's probably right, as usual.  But an hour or so in the garden and I feel much better.  I have finally beat back the summer weeds, planted about 60 bulbs, Crocus, and just enjoyed the wonderful weather we're having.

There is nothing like having your hands in the soil to make you feel better.  You'd think I'd be stiffer after being on my knees, but I'm not.  They say that gardening is the slowest of the fine arts and I find that's a speed that fits me well.

What Was I Thinking? Part Two

Continuing with my theme of have I finally lost it, let me tell you what happened when I made peach jam last week.  I've made several batches of peach jam this year, each one a bit better than the last.  So maybe I was getting cocky.  Not stupid though because I had all my ingredients lined up and recipe in hand.  I even read the recipe.  Did I follow the recipe, of course not.  Instead of putting in the peaches and the pectin and bringing it to a full boil before adding the sugar, I added the sugar right at the beginning and brought it all to a boil together.
Why?  I don't know, I'd just read the recipe, I wasn't multitasking and trying to do a couple of things at once (always a disaster for me), the phone didn't ring, there was no one at the door, but I did it any way.
This is getting scary, I'm making no transference to long-term memory at all.  I laughingly told Mac I thought I'd put in earplugs to stop information leaking out that way, but he said it'd probably just dribble out my nose then--not a pretty sight.
So any way, I now how many jars of peach syrup instead of peach jam, I guess we'll have to start eating French Toast instead of regular toast.

What Was I Thinking?

I'm getting worried about me.    I started  crocheting an afghan this week even though I haven't crocheted in years.  I'm kind of like Rose on "Keeping Up Appearances" who had to slow down to religious speed, I've had to slow down to crocheting speed, or at least crocheting weather.  It's too hot to crochet here in the summer,  even with the air conditioner on I don't want an afghan laying on my lap.  But I digress.  I had tracked down a free pattern on the internet and I'd  bought the yarn for the afghan during the summer, so I was ready to go.  Well actually I'd  bought one skein, which is a big  no no, in crocheting,  you're supposed to buy all the yarn you'll need for a project at once so it will be from the same dye lot.  But I was feeling thrifty, yes, let's call it thrifty, and I only bought the one.
Well as I said, I started on the afghan this week and quickly realized  I was going to need more yarn, SOON,   so I went looking for the label I'd torn off the yarn  so I could get the brand and color.  Couldn't find the label, looked everywhere including the trash.  But I didn't panic.  I thought, ok, it's bound to be Red Heart that's the brand I usually buy, I'd just look on the internet and try to match the color.    Wasn't quite sure where I'd bought the yarn  so I started looking on Amazon at Red Heart yarn, thousands of them, but even with the yarn laying next to the computer I couldn't get a match. Ah,  but then I remembered where I had bought it and I quickly looked through their site and still no match.  Desperate ideas of putting this yarn only on the ends and filling in the rest of the afghan with a different color passed through my mind,  but that would be a last resort.  I tore through the mess of stuff I keep "neatly" organized by the couch one more time, and as if popping in from another dimension, there was the label.  It wasn't Red Heart after all, it was Lion's Brand.  So back online to the store where I'd made my initial purchase and I attempted to order all the yarn I needed.  Every time I thought I had the order, address, charge card information all filled in the d**n thing refused to put the order through.
Frustrated I went to back to Amazon, found Lion's Brand yarn, found the color I needed, parfait,  and I ordered enough to finish the afghan,  And because it's such a twisty yarn and the color is variegated  I'm hoping it will all match up.  Here's hoping the yarn gets here before I get a burst of energy and get past crochet speed again.

Goodies From England

Our shipment from England came in last week and it felt like Christmas around here.  Kudos to Simon Hall  for their packing and shipping job, they're not cheap but well worth the money.  When shipping we've learned that it's not  priced  by weight, but rather by volume, so we always put a lot of smaller items in with our bigger stuff.
The picture is of the Georgian tilt-top tea table we bought.  I've wanted one forever, but it seemed liked those I saw were either bigger than I wanted or most expensive than I was willing to pay.  But this trip we saw several all in about the same price range, so we bought one.  The top has a lovely patina and you can tell that it has been both well used and well loved through the years.  I haven't put anything on it yet because I'm sure my cat is going to use it for a resting spot for awhile, that's what she does with anything new we get, and she has the distressing habit of kicking anything on her spot off, so I'll wait.  She's already used the chair so I figure the table is next.
The balloon-back chair on the left is also one of the things I shipped back, the one on the right came a few years ago.  I've put them in the sitting room part of our bedroom.  I need a larger rug but I haven't decided exactly what kind I want.  Mac says round, but I don't think so, I'm thinking more about a 5/7 rectangular one.  But in the meantime it's  nice to have the table here.

St.Simon's Island

No Blog yesterday as we got up and took off to St. Simon's Island.  It's Mac's birthday month so he gets to pick where we're going.  We had gone there last Spring and almost didn't go yesterday because Mac was afraid it wouldn't be as nice as we remembered, and in ways he was right, it was better!  Glorious weather, few people on the beach and I got to paint while he fished.  We went to 1st Street Beach Area, lots of free parking, a plastic walkway out to the water so you weren't fighting the sand all the way, clean bathrooms, really a nice place.
This was only about the third time Mac  has gone surf fishing and the water was perfect for it, gently rolling water, no white caps, no wind.  He caught 2 fish that someone told him were called Blues.  Usually he does catch and release but had to do in the first one because he couldn't get the hook out of it, and on top of that it bit him!  He said it had teeth like a barracuda.
After fishing we went to Neptune park and walked along the water and then went to lunch at Brogans, a place we'd never eaten at and we like to try new places.  We both had steak sandwiches and I wish that someone would teach cooks/chefs that rare doesn't mean raw, you sear it on the outside, not just defrost it and heat it up.  But we got to eat outside, always a favorite of ours and the view was beautiful.  Nice, nice day.

Autumn in the South

Our weather has finally cooled, in the 70's, though they're threatening us with 80's for the weekend.  So Autumn has arrived, and though the trees haven't lost their leaves yet, many of ours like the oak and magnolia don't lose them at all, there is a definite chill in the air when you first get up and the angle of the the sunshine coming in the windows is different.  We've closed our pool for the year and I can finally weed in the garden without having a sunstroke.  Yesterday I potted pansies not gnus, as I said on Facebook.  Mac has set up our outdoor Halloween display and we've added Autumn colors to our entry way.

Morning Walk

We went out of our subdivision and across the road to walk where the houses are on the Ogeechee River.  To say that it is a beautiful day here today is an understatement.  We're only in the 70's which is a little low for this time of year, but just beautiful!
The houses on this road have river frontage on the front and back as they sit on a point that juts out in the river, I think this is 7-mile bend, but I'm not sure.  Love the house made to look like a lighthouse, they have lounge chairs up there, Mac says he'd put in a 12 inch telescope.  Note the banana trees, I hope mine do as well.

More Walks

I thought as long as I was blogging about walks I'd finish up a couple of walks we did in England.

As we drove out our first Sunday there we passed a lovely hotel, The Swan, with walks along the Thames next to it.  We promised ourselves we'd walk and lunch there one day and we finally did.  But the first time we tried we couldn't find a parking spot so we drove on to Kelmscott the site of William Morris's home.  From there we walked along the Thames and through the fields.
A day or two later we went back to the Swan Hotel, found parking and set off across the fields next to the Thames.  Evidentually was came to Grafton Lock  where we talked to a man and his wife taking their narrow boat through the lock.  He said that in January he and his wife would be sailing on the QE II to America, via the Panama Canal and up to California.  From there take the train up the coast to Oregon where his sister lived.  After that they'd take the train all the way across the United States (northern route) to Niagara Falls before returning to England we wished him well on their journey.

Grafton Lock Keeper's Cottage

Finishing our walk we returned to the Swan, had a lovely lunch and I did a small painting and Mac did a drawing.
On our next to last day we did one of our favorite walks up to the Uffington White Horse and to Wayland Smithy.  The Uffington White Horse is a stylized prehistoric chalk figurelocated in Wiltshire in the Vale of the White Horse.  It has been dated from somewhere in the 1400-600 B.C. range.  It is 374 feet long and can be seen for miles, and when you're standing above it you can see forever.
From the Horse we walked to Wayland's Smithy a Neolithic long barrow dating from about 3400 B.C.  It is 185 feet long and 43 feet wide, a very special place.  Three great walks.

Horse, but hard to see because we were up above it

Sunday Walk

Fort McAllister entrance

We walk at least 2 miles every day, usually through our subdivision, but when the weather finally cools down, as it has, we start venturing out for longer walks.  Today we went to Ft. McAllister a Civil War Fort just a  mile or so down the road from us.  The Fort was built in 1861 to protect the Ogeechee River and to keep the important King's Road open so supplies could move to Confederate troops.  All the streets in our subdivision are named after ships that fought battles at the Fort.
The entrance still has cannon, and behind the park office is the remains of the fort, but our walk was to take us out towards the campgrounds.  On one side would be the Ogeechee River and on the other RedBird Creek the creek that runs behind our subdivision.  The tide was out, both the Ogeechee and RedBird are tidal, and there were wading birds fishing in the shallow waters.  At times we've seen dolphin in the Ogeechee, but not today.

Fishing dock at the fort

Looking across to an island in the Ogeechee

Ogeechee River

RedBird Creek

Campgrounds

Boatdock

Alligator in the water

We walked to the boat dock on the far side of the campgrounds and, not much of a surprise, saw an alligator near the boats, no doubt looking for a handout.  All in all we walked about 5 miles, so easy to do when it's not 95 degrees.