The Mountain Thymes

Happy Father's Day! No crowded restaurants for us today.  Cliff decided he would rather spend time outside at the Ocoee Gorge watching the rafts and kayaks.  No swimming allowed today as the water was too high and very rapid.  Great for riding the rapids. With our folding chairs and a picnic lunch we sat under a shady canopy enjoying the day.  Actually, there were quite a few families there today.  All picnic tables were occupied but our chairs were much more comfortable than the wooden benches when sitting for a long time.  It's pretty warm and humid today and with dark clouds building there's a good chance of thunderstorms later, On Boulder Creek Rd heading home............ Young mother doe trying to get her new fawn to follow her and get safely away from us. Wobbly legs and following the scent of mother's milk.   We wonder if it's only a couple of days old.  It wobbled slowly up the hill following the doe into the forest...

Hannah picked up her yoga mat and moved to the Roanoke, VA area in January.  I used to drive to Brasstown Tuesday evening to enjoy her instruction for gentle yoga, a wonderfully calming way to settle in for the evening.  Her voice is soothing and her sense of humor enlightening.  A couple of weeks ago I found out she has been doing an online 7:30 am wake-up yoga session daily.  Now I join her her group every morning that I can.  For some reason, which neither Cliff not I can understand, the session won't play on my iPad but will play on my laptop.  Weather permitting, Hannah's instruction is performed on her open porch in Virginia, undercover porch in the rain, with birds singing good morning and the cicada chorus loudly trying to outdo the birds. The freedom of stretching, breathing, and welcoming the day outside sparked a vision of a yoga deck overlooking my garden. Cliff couldn't square the corners because the tree was in the way so he used a differen...

On his way to Kansas City, tropical storm Cristobal spread his energy outward bringing us a couple inches of rain, flattening many of the garden vegetables. Who ever heard of a tropical storm in Kansas!  This morning we're mid fifties at 7 am with sunshine and pleasant temps for the next couple of days before it rains again.  I told Cliff I'd much rather see this rainy cycle we're in than the dry parched cycle we had the first couple of years we moved to Murphy.  That hot dry cycle stressed the forests and the animals.  The tropical energy causes achy joints and a little inflammation for a few days until it moves on.  So I have to take it easy and not build a stone wall or carry bags of wet mulch.  I say that because I did carry a bag of wet mulch on my shoulder down to the garden a few weeks ago before we bought my new wagon. I found the wheel barrow pulled me down the slope when it was loaded and was difficult to push back up the slope.  Cliff ...