12 on the Twelfth of December

It's time for this year's last twelve on the twelfth.   I think I missed two months, last month because of illness and one month in the spring.  Today was a special twelfth, the date being 12/12/12.  It only happens every one hundred years!  It is suppose to be a lucky day.  We didn't have any especially good luck, but I don't know of anyone who was sick today so lately that would be a lucky day for our family!

The day started out a little frosty!

One of Peanut's facebook friends posted a status that it would be a good morning for chocolate gravy, which made him want some too.

My Christmas cactus has started to bloom.  It's actually Tracie's cactus.  Mom got it for her birthday several years ago and it has been sitting in my kitchen window since!

First chore this morning is to clean up all the stuff we dropped in the living room after non stop Christmas shopping for a day and a half.  Our feet were hurting so we just carried it in and dropped it.

Peanut assembling and charging some of the Christmas presents. 

Round two of the Ponderosa Christmas card mailing.  We are doing our best to keep the post office from going broke.

Spent some time this afternoon maintaining the Imagination Library data base.  I am Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Pickett County!

 

If you need some vitamin C we have lots here, tangerines and oranges arrived this afternoon.

Made this orange jello and filled it with apples and oranges this afternoon.  Jello is always better with fruit.  Now if we just had some angel food cake.

Wrapped a few presents.  We don't have a tree up yet, just a corner full of presents. There is just so much to do!

This is the room where I am preparing the Christmas boxes.  Everyone gets a box for Christmas filled with surprises and snacks and things you need and things you don't need. It's fun to go through and easy to carry home.

I think I'll end the day with a little reading on my kindle.  I am just starting Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett.

Christmas Parade

Yesterday Gibson Tax Service participated in the Byrdstown Christmas Parade!  We had a small float and a golf cart decorated for our family to ride.  The theme was a Patriotic Christmas, so there was lots of red white and blue on all the entries!  Everyone had a great time waving and greeting the people along the parade route.  Our favorite part was tossing candy to the children watching the parade, expect for Brooks who loved waving flags the best!

 Getting ready to go.  It rained just before, but when it was time to start the rain stopped!

 This boy loved waving flags!

 He really loved to wave the flags!

 His enthusiasm was contagious and Brynn started waving too.

 Tracie and Peanut drove the golf cart.

Parker the elf, was an excellent candy thrower and wished everyone a Merry Christmas!

Circling the square

After the parade we went to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus and their reindeer.

Parker was glad to talk with them and put in his Christmas requests.

Brooks was not so happy about his visit.  

He did like the reindeer and even tried to feed them some grass and hay.

We all had a great time and are making plans for next year's parade!

Welcome December

Welcome December, we here on the Ponderosa are glad to see you.  November was not very kind to us!  Since November the 10th one of us has been sick, having surgery, recovering, or spending all day in the doctor's office!  I started the trend and Peanut followed!  We think we are on the mend, although there is still a little cloud of doom over my head because this week Peanut had a virus and I have yet to get it.  I have treated him like the plague for the last couple of days and I am armed with Lysol disinfecting wipes and bleach water and I am not afraid to use them! I am hoping the hand washing every few minutes will also save me!
 It's been a long three weeks and we've missed out on some things and caused others to have to change their plans.  It makes you want to have a little pity party, but every time I started feeling a little sorry for myself I would see something to remind me that I am not in charge!  On the way home from the drugstore Thursday night, after Peanut spent more hours in the Byrdstown Medical Center than the doctors, my stress was getting the best of me until I turned onto the road that would take me home.  There was the most magnificent full moon ever lighting my way.  It had swirls of color around it and was so beautiful it made me forget the long day.  Today I was washing windows and thinking what a beautiful day and we did not feel like enjoying it when I looked at the window I just wiped and saw that my Christmas cactus is loaded with blooms that are just about to fill my kitchen window with  beautiful pink flowers.  It just reminds me.  I am not in charge(this is hard for a person who has the bossy gene) and despite how I feel or what I plan the world will go right on and I don't run the show!

Rainy Day Adventure

It was a rainy cool, foggy morning but we had been lazing around the Ponderosa for a couple of days, so we decided it was time to either get up and do some housework or go on an adventure!  Adventure won!  As with most of our adventures, we got off the beaten path and traveled the back narrow curvy roads!  Our destination was Muddy Pond, the mission being to look for the grand kids a kid size table set for their playhouse.  As were traveled toward Monterey on the main road my driver decided that there must be a way to cross over the mountain without going into town, so he decided to take highway 295 and see what happened!  We're just fearless like that!  We thought we were going toward Wilson Elementary School, but neither of us had ever been there in the daylight!  Peanut said it wasn't very far! 

 About 30 minutes later we had curved our way to the top of the mountain. At the intersection in front of us was some kind of main road no signs and no road numbers or names.  We went left!  Shortly we drove by the Wilson School.  The next hint was a church with the name Hanging Limb.  We decided we were probably going back toward Wilder and turned around.  We have an atlas in the trunk and a gps in the glove compartment but we did not bother with them, because we are fearless like that.  Just a couple of miles down the road there were the signs!  Muddy Pond was just four miles away. 
We shopped in the general store and the variety store.

They have some interesting merchandise-- beautiful quilts, (the one in the middle was priced six hundred dollars) furniture, hats and dresses, but we were attracted to the food!  We made it home with these treasures: 2 types of jam, pickles, fried peach pies, a pumpkin roll, sweet potato chips, roasted and salted peas and mini orange slices!  My personal favorite was the pumpkin roll!

Our journey took us back to Clarkrange where we had lunch here.

I know it looks like it is just an old general store, but in the back is a 5O's style dinner where we had cheeseburgers and fries! 

This giant chicken lives in the back of this truck at the Cumberland General Store.  I would love to bring it to the Ponderosa it would look great here!
After a stop at the Wal-mart in Jamestown for a few supplies, we came home and sampled all the treasures we bought in Muddy Pond.  And no we didn't come home with a table set that we went looking for but it was a much better than staying home and doing housework!

Sunday's Blast from the Past

Here's a few autumn photos from a few years ago!

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween! It's Halloween!
The moon is full and bright

And we shall see what can't be seen
On any other night.

Skeletons and ghosts and ghouls,
Grinning goblins fighting duels

Werewolves rising from their tombs,
Witches on their magic brooms

In masks and gown we haunt the street

And knock on doors for trick or treat

Tonight we are the king and queen,

For oh tonight it's Halloween!

-Jack Prelutsky

No More Gas on the Ponderosa!

Last Tuesday we came home to find a card in our door from the "gas well police"  also known as the oil and gas inspector for the great state of Tennessee.  His card had a note that said 'please call concerning well, it is on plugging contract'.  We were not too concerned about this and placed his card on the table at the end of the couch.  You know the one-- where you toss all the mail and deal with it later.  Before we could deal, that very night someone called us.  He was the plugger who gets paid by the state of Tennessee.  He explained that he and the inspector had visited our property that day and  located the well.

We were not hiding the well, it is right there beside that cedar tree in the middle of the field!  See it?  It was there when we moved here 25 years ago.  We tried to use it a couple of times and it worked fine until it snowed a foot or was 25 below zero then it would go out.  After the second time we deserted it and never used it again.  That was at least 20 years ago.
We were told that it would need to be plugged or we could pay a 500 dollar fee for a bond.  Since it doesn't work and we don't use it there was a quick decision made to plug it.  The deciding factor being that the plugging involved no charge at all to us! 
So this morning two large trucks arrived.

 They inspected the situation, and confirmed that we had given them permission to cut the cedar tree

 The well was plugged with Peanut observing, because guys like big machines and of course you can always learn something-- you never know when you might need to plug a gas well.

 The whole process took several hours.  They drilled down 1400 feet and poured 5 bags of cement and then they came back up about 50 feet and poured 10 more bags and then on top they poured 5 more bags of cement.  They did not mean for us to be in that well again!! 
Finally they cut the top off about a foot below the ground in case we ever want to plow that area.

And here is what is left, you can't tell it was ever there and we have a better view of the horses and the road.  We just wonder why it took them 25 years to get concerned about the Ponderosa gas well!