Tribute to Aunty Kay

Dear great Aunty K has passed away. I guess she was one of those few who "die after age 100"! On Thursday she had a stroke and died today in the hospital - in Margate, South Africa. Next thing she will know will be to see Jesus coming in the clouds. For now, she has a peaceful unconscious "sleep" until that day. Next time I'll be able to gather together more of a tribute, as far as life's work and all that. For now I just know a favourite aunt who was always so full of beans, and had a bright and active mind even to the end; who gave the greatest back scratches; had the most wonderful stories and adventures to pass on; loved a great many things, including animals, farming of different types, birding, astronomy, mission service, genealogy and history, to name a few; and loved to pass on different memorabilia from days past to us kids. She was very interesting to talk to and always had a kind word and selfless service for those less fortunate. She was a nurse midwife and spent most of her life in mission service, along with her sister. She also spent time as the curator at an historical house museum in Maritzburg and also worked "behind the elephant" in a natural history museum. Anyway, as I said before, I'll write more when I get all the "facts".
More later...

Comparative Cam

Decided to put the infamous pretend "webcam" to some use by putting all the updates in one blog. So - I may be adding to them by and by...(just a warning).

OCTOBER 10, 2008


OCTOBER 17


OCTOBER 25


NOVEMBER 1


NOVEMBER 8


NOVEMBER 15


NOVEMBER 25

DECEMBER 2

DECEMBER 18 (more or less)


JANUARY 19, 2009


MARCH 10


APRIL 13


APRIL 17


APRIL 24


APRIL 27, 2010

MAY 30, 2009



JUNE 9, 09 (+-)


JULY 2009



SEPTEMBER 5, 2009 (+-)



EARLY OCTOBER, 09


OCTOBER 2009


NOVEMBER 25, 09 (newly painted house!)



DECEMBER 5, 2009 (snow melting already)


DECEMBER 25, 2010

JANUARY 8, 2010

Cloudland Canyon Camping

Willy-nilly - we decide to go camping this weekend - rain, shine or snow! Since we got to the campground early, we had our pick of sites. This one turned out to be in a prime spot! (Psst - If we're not going, pick spot #21 - next to the main trail into the canyon, set off by itself a little, and quite near the bathhouse. If we're going, you should pick site 22 or 20 - or something...;-) OK, sshh, don't tell anyone!



These photos need no comment, do they?


The trail around the top of the canyon with spectacular views - and drops...!


Here we are enjoying the lovely campfire before retiring to bed.

We hiked down from our campsite into the canyon to the two main waterfalls.
This is of the smaller waterfall - don't know why I didn't take one of the larger one - maybe just a little tired, perhaps? I forgot to count the steps coming back out - but it was a LOT! Nevertheless well worth the effort - another highly recommended spot to visit.

A view into Lookout valley from the Hangglider launch site. Here's a thought - why not do your leaf-peeping in Tennessee? - forget New England, guys - no crowds, no traffic jams, no exhorbitant hotel rates, and the weather isn't as cold - notice some short sleeves in the campfire photo, plus these spectacular colors and views. (I'll have to say that today was quite a bit colder as a cold front came in - but hey, still no snow or anything - yet - maybe just some teeny-tiny sleet...)

All in all, a wonderful campout.

And the weekly 'webcam' shows more leaves gone. Notice the reflection in the livingroom window.



Happy Birthday today to M in Arizona! And since Grandpa Gee is asking, next week I'll try to give a school update for GVE's second grade class. Will have to take the camera to school!

All the best this week - especially thinking of you guys in the UK. Sorry the economy is almost worse there than here (at the mo). Hope it picks up soon. I wonder what the talk of a new worldwide economic "system" will bring us? I guess we'll see by next summer - early June (they say).

Trees and Cakes on Fire

C and I have a little joke about calling the fire department when we see an especially brilliant tree. We saw LOTS this week. Some rain yesterday might be hastening the end of the color though - we'll see. I'm not including a photo of the brilliant trees because my camera just doesn't do them justice. Perhaps I'll include a few here later on down the road if S took any today on our walk through the woods on the Biology Trail. I love the glow from the leaves deep in the woods... S just informs me he didn't take any. :-(

Here is a pic of AK about to blow her candles out - one for each decade. My cousin, L, sent it and labelled it, "The Big Blow"! Talk about fires :-) Hope they didn't have to call the fire department for this one!


Our house this week, looking a bit wet.

This week in Bible/Worship, C and I made a model from the parable of the 4 types of soil, representing our hearts and how they receive the Word of God (seed). We had fun doing that. It's no

It's not quite finished in this photo - still have to add the modern equivalent/meaning to all the soil types.

A couple weeks ago, we also made a plaster of paris model of different typologies eg: mountain with snow, glacier, hills, lake, sea, rocks and all that. Will have to take a photo of that too. We have some cloth with POP on it, which, when you dip it in water, softens completely. Then you lie it over the mold (can be made of newspaper balled up, or flour clay, whatever); which then hardens to rock hard within a day in the shape you leave it. After that, you can paint it or otherwise decorate by glueing stuff on or whatever. FUN! (That reminds me of all the paper-mache stuff we used to do in school - that was fun, and MESSY too).

Here is C at a cello lesson within the last month, I think. She's about done with book 3 now. In violin she is also enjoying learning all the Christmas music with the others. More than half of that class is also in 2nd grade.

And here are some gym-masters pics of H during practice (taken by G).

1) About to catch!!


2) Got her!

Better you than me, H!!

You are STRONG - and here's the pic to prove it!



A girl's best friend...

This particular canine got herself too close to a skunk last night, poor thing. She'll probably have a miserable night living with herself!

Well, folk, that's all for this time...If I had time (AND my priorities straight), I'd actually PLAN this blog ahead of time and make it worth your while....but alas, that doesn't happen very often. There's hope ahead though - 2009 is coming, and with it, some new resolutions!! YAY!

Later...

Autumn Fun

This evening we enjoyed a church-planned Autumn supper and festival at our friend's house.(Lord, please help me not to break the 10th commandment). We were blessed by gorgeous weather.

Here we are gathering round for a vespers/worship which featured charades by the kids.

I'd guess there were about 2-300 people. More came after these shots.

Some folk brought their Jacob's sheep to show the kids. He was a ram and somewhat frisky.

There were two telescopes set up. S set one of them up. The featured items included the moon(waxing but still crescent), Saturn, Venus, the ring nebula, a double cluster and another galaxy (Andromeda??). I'm sure they looked at other things too but I was elsewhere!

After dark, the "fun" began - face painting,

hayrides,

and general running around and being wild.....

Here now is the "webcam" image for the week.

And some photos of fun in the autumn leaves last Sunday.

Since we had frost this week, I picked these 2 buckets of our last bell peppers. Unfortunately only 3 had turned red of this batch, but hey, the green ones aren't too bad!

On Sunday night we drove up for the annual FOL banquet and here is how they decorated our tables.

The food was delicious - there's nothing to compare to vegan delicious - like homemade gluten and these chewy buns! Yum.

Last but not least, Congrats to Great Aunty K who turned 100 yesterday! As someone said, "Not many people die after 100" so you're really special, AK!

Have a great week, and a pinch and a punch for the first of the month, NIX. Gotcha!