Must be shred

Seen on a bin at a library. A local University library.

How proud this makes me of my diploma.

Scritch scratch

Another recent game cam pic. After looking through some of the older game camera photos, I realized that we've had the camera in almost this exact location before.

I'm not sure why it surprised me, when I first realized it... Animals like to walk on clear, open paths just as much as people do.

I suppose I vaguely imagined some sort of I'm an animal! I walk in the woods! philosphy. But no. If we built an asphalt highway through those trees, the animals would be walking on it.

Melanistic coyote?

I'm fairly certain that this recent game gam photo is of a melanistic coyote.

You can see why we've been tempted to buy a new camera with a faster trigger. We get a fairly high percentage of this type of shot (only part of a moving animal).



Here he is going in the opposite direction.



Here's that same photo, lightened up a little.

Without seeing the face, I can't say for sure that it's not a coydog. I don't think those are very common here either, though.

Keep your fingers crossed that we'll get a better photo of this individual in the coming weeks.

Tour of trees

At one of the homes we toured last weekend, my friend S. and I enjoyed the sight of the huge trees as much as the home and all the decorations.

How I could have neglected to note exactly what type of trees these were, I'm not sure... I guess I was afraid that the shuttle would leave us. Looks kind of like an oak though, I think. You can click to see it better. (I blurred my friend's face so she wouldn't kill me.)



Another nice one on the other side of the house. Wish I had trees this nice and spreading. (If you're local, you might recognize this as Mitchell Farm.)



On the walk back to the car, we passed a couple of trees with last-gasp color. (That smaller farm manager's house is really more my speed.)



The trees near the Ruby Radish were bare of leaves. The better to see the good bone structure, though.



This is the view from Mitchell Farm - it gives you an idea of the winter forest look in my limestone valley. Almost everything green is a cedar; there are few pines.

Tour of Homes

A friend and I went on the Blount County Tour of Homes. Ticket sales help fund grants and special projects for local schools.

This year, I guess they had a hard time finding people to open their houses. Out of the five "homes", one was a church, and another was a tea room.



It was fun anyway, and the refreshments at The Ruby Radish were so good that I doubt people would mind them being on the tour every year.



The photos here are all from the same house - the smallest one on the tour. (I haven't processed the other photos yet.)



I'll never live in a house this fancy, but I enjoy seeing other people's homes... their doodads, their decorations, their dishes, and so forth.



She had a large collection of nutcrackers near the fireplace.



"Nutcrackers are scary," says my husband.



Shiny festive mantel.



An abundance of matching candles.

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The schools need help because Blount Countians tend to spend their money in Jefferson county, where most of them work, rather than in their home county, where their kids go to school. It's a problem.

All that lovely new paving on Hwy 75 is thanks to stimulus money, by the way, not local tax money.

Early snow

Nothing like a little snow, to bring one out of a blog slump.



Every channel forecast snow, but I didn't pay much attention to their percentage predictions. My belief that it would actually snow, in Alabama, in early December, was exactly 0%.



But it did snow, a little.



Jasmine romped. She adores cold weather.



The chickens were wary. It might have been some evil plot, after all.



I don't remember the trees ever looking so nice, after such a light snow.



I hope the rosemary didn't get too frizzen.