Florida Weekend - Panama City Parakeets

This weekend I visited with my friends Leonard and Betty in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. I had not seen their house in quite a while. Leonard has the yard and his barn looking good. Lots of nice, large shade trees. I felt I was staying in a house straight out of Southern Living, Betty should be a consultant to those that want their homes to depict the decor and ambiance of the south. I should have taken some pictures. I don't know how she kept it so immaculate. It was good hanging out with them.

I stopped in Panama City and visited with my friend Becky. We ate seafood at Hunt's Oyster Bar. It is located near the city marina, away from the tourist crowd. If you are in the area you should try it, the food was great as usual. I recommend the blackened Mahi Mahi. Oysters were good too. We later went to the city pier to check out the shrimp boats.

There was a lady there with three parakeets that rode on the back of her MG Midget. She said the wings were not clipped. They were trained to hang on to the convertible top frame as she zipped around town. When she left they just rode back there like it was the thing to do. They were pretty tame as you can tell when they roosted on my arm. They liked me, they waited until they were back in the car to do what birds tend to do. She had a bag of peanuts still in the shell on the hood of her car (see the bottom picture). The parakeets would hop over to the bag, get a nut, crack the hull, and eat the peanut. I guess I better plug the business the lady was advertising for - "Legend or Legends" -could not remember which. It is a charter fishing boat based there at the city marina. When we walked by it had just come in from a charter and it was loaded with fish.

On the way home I stopped to check out Sadie's Flea Market south of Dothan. I bought a couple of tomato plants. Lots of stuff there and mostly just that, "stuff." I did pick up a few woodworking ideas to add to my "to build" list.

Well I better get back to my day job. I wish smooth sailing for all.
Comments are always welcome.

Amy's 4/15/08 Visit

My daughter Amy visited from Chattanooga to try out dad's new toy. She enjoyed the throaty sound of the 3 cylinder diesel and the ease of the hydrastatic transmission - basically a 2 pedal (one for forward and one for reverse with a hi/lo option) system. It works well if constantly backing up and pulling forward when digging a stump or loading dirt.
If you double click on the photo you'll notice the blooming dogwoods and also little flags stuck in the ground. The flags are there so I will not run over the little volunteer walnut seedlings from nuts buried by the squirrels. I've read somewhere that squirrels forget where they bury nuts within 30 minutes after burying them.

Well friends it is time for the annual Apalachicola FL Boat Show trip this weekend to look at the wooden boats and eat seafood. Every year I go I say I am going to build a boat for the next year's show, but hey we all know how that goes - something always comes up! Wellll thats it for today. Comments are always welcome!

Before and Later!

These are some logs a local farmer cut off his place near Greenville GA. My tractor could not lift any of the logs. But I was able to drag them to the mill and roll them on the lifting arms with the tractor. The pine logs (18"x17' & 15"x16') were sawed into 1 inch boards and the 2 oak logs (34" x12' & 28"x10') were sawn into 5 quarter lumber. The farmer pulled the trailer with a full size pickup, which was strained coming up my drive. It took me about 3 hours to saw the logs.

All's well that ends well - no nails or other foreign objects.

This is about 700 board feet of lumber sawed from the 4 logs, 2 which were water oaks (of the red oak family) and the two long ones were local loblolly pines.

Sooooooooo bring your logs and I'll saw them to your dimensions.

All comments are welcome!

New Toy

Hello all, its been a while since I've added anything. So here goes. As you can see my new toy is the John Deere 3203 tractor with a front end loader. I also got a set of pallet forks to move logs and lumber with. The dealer delivered it Friday 3/14/08. I spent all weekend moving sand/dirt from my creek bottom to level spots in the yard and fill in a flower bed. Last night I moved logs with the pallet forks until after dark. It is truly something I should have gotten a long time ago - maybe it would have lessened some of my back issues.

Saturday, a customer will be delivering pine and red oak logs to be sawed. I will post some pictures of the tractor in action moving the logs and lumber soon.

On another note, a former colleague/good friend - Leonard and his wife Betty visited about a month ago on their way home from Atlanta. Leonard and I worked together for the federal government and then later for a CPA/consulting firm. It was good to share old memories and reestablish our friendship.

Just finished a good read, David Baldacci's "The Camel Club." Like all good books, it causes you to imagine how his story is really possible, especially knowing what I know (based on my 20 years of government exposure) about how certain government officials can and do abuse their positions. Enough!

A couple of friends and I are going to start an informal interactive group, we decided to name it the Creek Social Club based on the core members either live or have property along Mountain Oak Creek. Our meetings will be directed towards exchanging ideas and experiences related to our past careers and current interests. The Camel Club inspired us. Of course we will not be able to impact the nation as Oliver and the rest of the Camel Club members did. I will keep you posted and of course will add our world and local society saving ideas

Well, I am off to play with the green machine. As always your comments and responses are always welcome. Later, Fred

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!

Hello all,I am headed to Appalacicola FL this weekend for seafood and the ambiance of being near the ocean or the Gulf that is. My buddy Chuck has a condo there, actually it is on St George Island. It is beautiful there, very limited commercialization other than high end condos (which is way beyond my means - building lots are advertised in the $900,000's). The good thing is that it limits the boom box crowd. There are some really good seafood restaurants there - surprisingly - reasonably priced.

I was there last month for their annual seafood festival. I brought back a pickup load of oyster shells to add to the gravel on my driveway. The flies followed me for the first 75 miles or so. Once I put it on my drive it took about 2 weeks for the fish/salt bouquet to dissipate. Maybe TMI, pardon me if so!

The weekend after Christmas I will be cutting some walnut trees down for a client. I'll take some before and after photos. One tree leans heavily over a creek. It will be challenging - hope I don't get wet! The wood is so beautiful. I will take some close up shots.

I wish you all a safe and merry time over the holidays. Are we getting way too caught up in the Christmas tree sensabilities thing or what? Don't want to get me started on that.

Guten Tag,
Fred

Men at work or play, rather!

These are 12/07 photographs of some poplar logs being cleared for a garden spot in the Whitesville GA area. The tractor is a 1952 Ford (a testament to old is not always bad) and worked well in moving the logs to the mill. You have to look hard but Clinton is in the forefront while Tommy is in the background. Enjoy!

Then and Now!

The first picture was taken in Panama City - I think in 1985 or so. That is Angie in the front and Amy hugging me. The second picture of us (Amy,Angie,Fred) was taken in WV in July 2007. Its amazing how the girls only get better looking and we men just get old. Enjoy!