Where have we been???

The past couple of weeks has been busy. I am not going to complain about work on here but it has been rough. It always is this time of year. I want summer vacation as much as the kid do. I think we have got 4 weeks left. After a hard day at work I love to come home and work in the yard. We have been working just about everyday. As wet as it has been I think I have been mowing twice a week. We got our garden in the ground last week. I went and got a couple of truck loads of dirt from Martins here in Murfreesboro. We have a raised bed. I was going to put landscaping times around it until I remembered that those are pressure treated,so we just raised it without those. Hopefully I killed all the weeds around it. Anyways,we planted peppers,squash,,and cucumbers. I also planted tomatoes in the corner of the flower bed by the deck and some more plants in a container that I placed on the deck. This is our second year at trying a garden. Last years turned out OK so we doubled the size this year.
This morning we got up and went back to Martins and got a bunch of flowers and filled my truck up with mulch. Its a tough job emptying the truck full of mulch. We put mulch in all our plant beds. Our hands turned black. It took lots of scrubbing to get them clean. Megan put flowers in 4 hanging baskets and all sorts of pretty things in the bed that borders the deck. I think my favorite will be the sunflowers. It should look great when everyting is in full growth. I will have Megan post pictures then. I dont know what we have planned for the rest of the weekend. Its a good thing we got all that done because we will be camping the first three weeks of May. Everyone go out and enjoy this wonderful weather.

Big Water Ocoee

Last weekend we stayed at River Rats with Krista and Jay. They took a class Saturday so A few of went to the Ocoee. We heard it was running big. When we got there you could tell something was up. We drove up the hole river and decieded to get on at goforth creek. I have always heard about the ocoee at lots of flo but had never seen it much less paddled it. Our group did great we even had two 14 year old boys with us who one day will be great paddlers. Far better than their dads.

Sunday we drove aropund M'boro the best we could to look at the damage. You see that stuff on TV and movies but that was my first time seeing something like that live. It was very humbling. My prayers go out to all who lost.

Dogwood winter

I love the south. It seems like like there is a crazy name for every event. Muleday was this past weekend in Columbia TN. We went from 70degrees Sunday to 40 yesterday with a freeze last night. The weather lady called it Dogwood winter. I don't care what it is I want the 70 degrees back. It could be dogwood winter because we bought a dogwood to plant. We got it Sunday and now sits in the garage waiting for it not to be freezing. Have a great day.

Saturdays in spring.

Saturday Jim,Don and I paddled the LRC.(little river canyon). Its right outside of Fort Payne AL. Its mostly interstate from here so the drive is not that bad. Jim and I paddled this back in December at a low level. Then it was 750cfs, yesterday it was 2000cfs. And it was a totally different river. Normally it is a class3 river with two class 4s and several 2s. At 2000cfs it was very pushy and very solid 3+s everywhere. Every rapid had holes that were keepers(ASK Jim about those). The first class 4 is called eddy hop. It was not that hard. It required a big ferry across the river. We all ran it with no problems. Next is bottle neck. Not all that tricky but very fast water that requires two must moves. At the level we had yesterday it looked mean. As soon as I stood on the scouting rock my "gut" told me to walk it. I always listen to my gut when on the river. So I walked. Jim ran it. He did great until the last and biggest drop where he got off line by about a foot and went for the ride. The good thing there is a great recovery pool to collect the boater and gear. We found a sunny beach to eat a snack and hear about Dons trip on the Grand Canyon. A couple more hours of hole dodging we made it to the truck. We didn't take pictures today but Don did get video of Jim at bottle neck. When I get it I will post it.
I got home about 5:30. Megan and I grilled hamburger steaks. It was a great evening to top off a great day.