Our TN sunset today

On the way home we saw this awesome sunset!

From the car while driving along...

So we stopped and watched it go down, getting a very deep red as it did so.

Do you see the grasshopper in the picture who wanted his pic taken too?

It went behind a little cloud then emerged, very red, on the other side.

Like a copper penny dropping down

dropping.....

I wish my camera could do this one justice.  Thinking back, maybe if I'd had the flash on....

Driving back through Etowah.  A quaint streetfront. We also passed a Mennonite family driving their horses and carriage home...missed a pic!

On the upper Tellico River and Huckleberry Knob.

Just 3 of us went out today and enjoyed the water and fish on the upper end of the Tellico River.  No-one else was around and we had a fun time, especially running the raft down a little cascade and through some rapids at the bottom.

Our set-up

Getting used to the cold water (yes, quite a bit colder than the Conasauga a couple weeks ago!)

This is our waterfall/slide - lots of fun.

Getting ready to "fly"

Hitting the rapids

Riding the waves

Most everything still green at the end of August.  Usually we see a bit more colour at this elevation by this time...?

Advertising for "Little Debbies" as she comes back upstream.

Refreshing!

After this we still drove up to Huckleberry Knob area and hiked the mile or so to the Knob itself, going via Oak Knob.  It goes without saying that at this time of year, we each ate our fill of Huckleberries!

We passed into North Carolina for a short time (The two "knobs" are in NC)

And they tasted as good as they look.  We kept a watchful eye out for bear too!

Someone had bushwhacked the road very recently so it was a pleasure to walk straight up it.

Hiking via Oak Knob - again, freshly bush-hogged.  There was a lovely, sweet smell of fresh mown hay in the air!

At the top of Huckleberry Knob

Ooo, yummy blueberries for supper!

While huckleberry picking, C came across a geocache!  That was an unexpected surprise.  We did another one on the trip back along the Cherohala too. (a mini one!)

A few out-of-focus berries....

On the drive up we also saw several of these poles set up for the Northern Gray Flying Squirrel.  The distance is too great for them to glide normally across this road so they've set up these special poles with thingies to land on...quite ingenious in my opinion! I wonder who trained the squirrels to use them?? ;-)

A closer look at one side

A view on the way down

I'd love to live in the wilderness like this and have enough cleared land for sunshine and gardens.  Isn't Tennessee beautiful?

Well, that was our afternoon today!  A lovely way to spend a Sabbath afternoon - enjoying God's creation!

Some of TN's natural beauty

S took these lovely photos last week.  He's also quite getting into TN fish.  These are of the Tellico river and the Conasauga creek.  We also went to the Tellico river today which I'll show in the next blog.

Conasauga Falls

Eastern Tiger

Fishy, fishy, swim in the water....

On another peaceful summer day in TN.

Help, the Paparazzi are on to me already!

Here are some recent, sweet pics of grand nephew A.  So cuddly at this age.

Just sitting here with grandma, chewing on this thing.  Working on getting myself to sleep. At 6 weeks of age, of course I can do this!

But it's so cuddly in my cousin's arms

No more paparazzi please!  I'm not asleep yet!  (Notice my subtle Vulcan hand signal!)

Aaahhh, at last some peaceful zzz's

Toadstools

Found some pretty toadstools the other day.

Big Ears, are you under there?

            C thinks these are forming a fairy ring....perhaps so....?

If you want to know what Wikipedia says of mushrooms, here is a link to their site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom

hmmm, maybe not.....

Some things Long Ago

Found some old photos at my folk's house.  Brought back a few (mostly) good old memories.

Riding Miranda - my dream pony (belonged to our friends, the Heywoods). This is where I heard the term "changing leg" for the first time!! (embarrassing story!). Look at that antique car in the background (even for then)

Sitting on Pym.  As Judy (on the right) used to put it "like a pimple on a mountain"! He was the biggest (and most gentle) horse you've ever seen!

This is my first horse, Rocket.  He was 21 years old when given to me, but still spunky, and very sweet!  I certainly was NOT going to look a gift horse in the mouth - someone else told me his age! (wink).

Three little girls go riding. (Poor Tarzan can't see where's he's going...but I'm sure he's enjoying the carrot!)

Billy the lamb (even though a female). I think I named her Billy after the story, Billy Goat Gruff.  Poor miss-named lambie!  And she really DID follow me everywhere I went, even to school, just like Mary's lamb.  This is the only photo we ever took of her.  She and her twin had been abandoned or orphaned so I got to keep her and bottle feed her from very small.  When we brought her back to the flock, she was double the size of her twin brother.

The church at Mugonero Hospital in Rwanda, where my parents worked in the 80's (before the genocide).

Thought I'd throw in a picture of Dee as a baby...cute, isn't she?

Well, that's a hodge-podge of photos if there ever was one!  Perhaps I'll add a few more to it someday.