2010 Krewe of St. Andrews Mardi Gras Parade - Panama City FL

Remember to double click on the photos to enlarge them! The fire engine was actually the last of the parade. The next two pictures are of the Parrothead Club's (which I plan to join, if I ever get moved down there) float, the last two are of a float pulled by a tractor just like mine, had to include them! The weather was great, a little cool but plenty of sun. The floats each had great music systems and plenty of beads, I probably got about 5 pounds worth, a fun time was had by all!

Chickens on the ground, chickens on the ground!

Remember to double click on the photos to enlarge them! The chickens came from my friends Andrew and Chuck. Andrew incubated eggs from his original batch of mail order chicks and walla, here's the result. I've caught two snakes in the hen house with swallowed eggs and they ended up deceased. Two more were abducted by hawks I think, one minute they were squawking the next they were gone. In the summer I get about 3 - 4 eggs a day, in the winter about 1 a day. Too many for me!

Snow in Whitesville GA

Our first snowfall of 2010 in Harris County, Ga.

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Angela's Firewood Rack

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Angie wanted me to build her a firewood rack for her Christmas gift - it took a couple of weekends to build it. Of course she had to keep after me to get started on it so I would not procrastinate until after Christmas. I fooled her - I got it finished almost 2 months early. The rack is about 10 foot long, 2 foot deep, and 6 foot tall.

But the cool thing is that the majority of the wood used in the rack came from a tree I cut down off their place in January of this year. Sooo, she can now point to the stump and say the tree that used to be there provided the wood for the firewood rack.

One of the pictures is of the rack loaded on a trailer and the other is the rack in place loaded with firewood. Angie says her outdoor cat sleeps wedged under the roof.

I'm wondering what Amy wants me to build. I told my daughters cookies work fine for me as gifts - I prefer making gifts rather than caving into most of society's commercialism of the holidays.

That's it for now folks, smooth sailing for all.

Amy in Chattanooga

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Hello all, I visited with my daughter this summer in Chattanooga TN. Here's some photos we took. I found the area to be really scenic, especially with the mountains in the background.

We went to the weekly (every Sunday afternoon) farmer's market gathering. http://www.chattanoogamarket.com/ There were the normal displays of locally grown vegetables mixed in with local artists' work. In addition there was a young lady singer performing and selling CD's of her work.

This all occurred under a pavillion which also sheltered food booths representing local eateries. A nursery man had all kinds of plants so I bought a couple of grape plants to start my own vineyard - we'll see how that goes - I'll keep you posted.


The bridge over the Tennessee River in the background is one of the two longest pedestrian bridges in the USA. It is about a half a mile across - I can say it did take a while to cross it.


That's Amy hang gliding, an ultralight actually pulled them up to about 3,000 feet - you would think as an air traffic controller she would want to fly in something more stable - but that's Amy.

My daughter Angie has more high flying photographs on her blog as well. I would like to take credit for Amy's picture but if you can believe that - I've got some other stories I can wow you with!

Visit Chattanooga - there is more to it than Lookout Mountain, the Incline Railway, the Aquarium and the other typical stuff we visited in the past.

One place I would highly recommend for all booklovers is a visit to McKays Used Bookstore http://www.mckaybooks.com/. Bring your old books to exchange and get a credit towards purchasing DVD's, videos, books, and/or CD's. You will be much impressed. Have a great day!

LOG ARCH

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These are some pictures of a log arch I had a welder buddy of mine build for me about 6 years ago. I would like to be able to take credit for designing the arch, but I saw an advertisement for a commercially made one in a logging magazine. I just cut the advertisement out and got a set of wheels and spindles from a junk yard and gave it all to the welder and he went from there.

The top of the arch lowers to the front. You wrap a chain around the logs and hook to the top of the arch. As you pull forward the arch held by the weight of the logs will raise lifting the front of the logs up so they won't dig in the ground.

To lower the logs to unhook the chain, you just back up a little and the arch folds forward releasing the tension on the chain. I usually just put a short log under the towed logs and as you pull forward it raises the logs and again releases the tension on the log. The arch supports the majority of the weight with the pulling vehicle only used for towing the arch with the logs.

For years I used my pick up but this little tractor does a great job. As you can see I had scooped some sand in the front bucket to help keep some weight on the front wheels.

A word of caution here, whenever you pull logs up a hill or steep rise go straight up and not sideways across the hill. If you try the sideways route the logs may try to roll and the weight of the logs may cause the arch and possibly the tractor to upset.

The first picture is of one pine log about 24 inches in diameter at big end and 16 foot long. According to http://www.woodweb.com/ the log weighs about 2,000 pounds.

The other pictures are of the arch with 2 pine logs one 16 foot long and the other 20 foot long. Both together weighed about 3,000 pounds.

I pulled them about 700 feet (2 1/3 football fields) from the front of my property to where I keep my sawmill. I was able to get 60 feet of logs out of this one tree - one eight foot, two 16 foot, and one 20 foot one. We (or rather mother nature) can go grow the heck out of pine trees here in the red clay of Georgia.

Finally the aftereffects of Fay, mainly rain and strong winds are decreasing. Only had 2 planted pines (about 30 ft tall) blow over.

Take care my friends and family - remember your comments/feedback are always welcome.

My Little Dog

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Hello all,

Finally got some recent photos of my little dog JR. He is a Lab/Beagle/Daschund mix, about 3 years old.

JR, whom I just call puppy is the most independent dog I've ever owned. He'll come to you for a hug or a little petting, but will not stick around for any extended contact. Of course this might be a result of when I got him as a puppy he was kept by himself in a small rabbit cage.

JR is the runningest dog you'll ever see. He is continuously in motion. When he runs he'll hop straight up in the air, maybe this is from his beagle blood jumping up to see above the tall grass when chasing rabbits.

I let him run free on my 5 acres, so hopefully he will keep the deer and other varmits away from my fruit trees. But he did not do too good of a job this year. One of my peach trees was loaded, but the day before I was going to pick them they disappeared. I think the squirrels or crows got them.

He is definitely territorial when it comes to other dogs. I had a friend over one day with his Rottweiler, and JR chased him (the Rott) until he jumped back into the truck. He's done that with every dog that someone brings over. I've got a couple of half wild cats that hang around the garden shed and he is continually treeing them and trying to climb the tree after them.

Don't forget to click on the photos and they will get larger, but JR is a little fellow. Enjoy!