First Morning's Light

One of my favorite things to do at Tree Ring is get up before sun rise and walk to the dry pond.

Sometimes you can see a thick blanket of clouds hovering.  Just as the sun peeks over the trees, the rays of sun slice through minute by minute until you can't see the blanket any more.  It's incredible. 

I love the angle of the sun in February and the casts of the tree shadows.

I try to be quiet, but I never catch any wildlife in the clearing.

Even the lichen is beautiful at that time of day.

Then I check the gate,

Grab some breakfast,

And think about how fortunate I am.

Oh Yes, We Really Did That

This year I decided to get legit and put some initials after my name.  A 50 year old woman in Defense IT better look damn good on paper now that the inevitable layoffs have begun. The first credential I am going for is Project Management Professional, also known as PMP. 

I haven't posted in nearly a year, but for some reason I have to post this story much more desperately than I need to read a 500 page book in preparation for a 4.5 hour PMP test. This is very typical. I almost flunked out of college because I worked at the library.  I brought home so many books I was supposed to shelve that I never studied for my boring classes and barely got a degree. 

But I digress.

There weren’t many blogs last year because of all my surgeries. However, we did get to Tree Ring a few times. I will start with a trip we made in February. 

What stupid thing is going on here? 

 

Oh yes he is.

This is why men don’t live as long as women. 

Here’s how the conversation went: 

RetroMan:  I’m afraid this tree is going to fall on the shelter, so I’m going to have to cut it down. 
Me:  It's awfully close to the shelter.  It might fall on it anyway.
RetroMan:  That's not going to happen because I'm strapping it up first. 

Me:   What?  Isn’t that dangerous? 

RetroMan:  Not for me. 

Me:  Shouldn’t we get a professional to do that? 

RetroMan:  We’re tree farmers. We are the professionals.

After making some cuts and pulling for quite some time without budging the tree, we decided to try the Polaris.

Here is the play-by-play in video.  It's funnier if you turn on your speakers.  Each one is about 45 seconds.

The tree just missed crushing the Polaris.

Good project managers learn from experience if they are still alive after the project.

I am a good project manager.

I will make sure we have longer straps next time.

Well Hello There!

It's been a while.

Lots of good things have happened since the last blog post:

• Got two new knees
• Got a new job
• City Girl is happily living in Roanoke, Virginia
• RetroMan and I are planning to build a barn at TRC.  Or rather RetroMan is going to build it and I will try to help.
• I turned 50

Some sad things: 

• Sammie passed away
• Georgia Farm Woman took down her blog 

RetroMan is doing great.

Me too.

Please don't blow that one up.

TRC is awesome, though we didn't visit much in '12 due to all my surgeries.

The neighbor cows still check us out when we are there.

The butterflies are amazing.

I will make a better effort to update the blog - especially since we're going to build a barn and I can only imagine the calamitous possibilities that will present.

TTFN.

Sammie Gets His Camping Badge

Our dog Sammie has finally gotten used to Tree Ring.  

Normally he is hyper vigilant and stays alert the entire time we're there.

But he's starting to relax. 

While he still can't wait to get back into the truck to go home, he appears to actually enjoy being there.

While the shovel made a handy leash holder, we found we could let Sammie off the leash without him wandering off.  This is really remarkable, and something we could never do in the City.

I suspect that in the country he looks to us to protect him.  In the City, he knows that protection is his job.

The gophers seem to have relaxed too.  They think there is buried treasure somewhere on Tree Ring and have told all their friends.  The hills are sometimes taller than Sammie.

We only saw one other animal on our trip.  A gopher tortoise that wasn't very happy to see us.  So far I've counted 5 gopher tortoise holes on Tree Ring.

What a Difference 6 Months Makes

We went to Tree Ring this past weekend.  That's two times in two weeks! Yipee!

The photo below compares the winter version of the picture in the blog header.


 

What a considerable difference, huh?

This picture is from a bridge up the road from Tree Ring.

For some reason, when you click on the picture you just see the winter version.