Where have I been?

I have not posted in forever!! I do have a picture to post. I played with composition a bit. HECK, I'll just post both.

All those peppers came from our garden. We limed this year and our green peppers are HUGE. I think those are red hot chilis in the front. I love their look! Those suckers are hot! I made a huge pot of goulash with a couple of them and it was almost too hot to eat.

Our apple trees are prolific this year and the apples big and red. They are usually knobby and green with little stripes of red until they rot on the tree with a million worm holes in each one. I think I will have an orchard one day. So what if the necterines will bear 1 in 13 years statistically. Maybe I'll get lucky. I believe I would plant some chestnut trees, and apple, pear, and plum trees. Blueberries, pumpkins, Indian Corn, and sunflowers for sure. Oops...I breached the orchard boundaries.

Summer Day

Today is a beautiful summer day - sunny and mid 80's. I have a lot to do today but I am taking some time this morning to blog. First of all, the cherries are ripe and I picked a bunch the other night. I got inspired to pick cherries about 20 minutes before dark - these are what I picked.

Molly was checking out the cherries, probably seeing if she wanted to eat them. The cat will eat anything that's not nailed down pretty much.

Yesterday, Jerry and I ran did a 5K - Run by the River in Russell. The race has been run over 30 years so it was very well organized. Rain was predicted and it was very cloudy and breezy, but no rain and a great day for running. My goal is always to finish in under 30 minutes, but I was hoping to beat 27:45. Sadly, I did not. The time keeper at the one mile mark called out 9:02 as I past him. At the 2 mile mark, I heard 9:14 after I past him. The last quarter mile about did me in. I was heaving and cold. My hands were cold and numb and I thought I might not make it to the finish line...which is really disheartening when you can SEE the finish line and worry that you won't get there. I did finish though and the guy who tore off my number had concerns that I was going to puke on him. After a minute or two after finishing I was fine though. My time was 29:30 something. I was disappointed with that. I thought I would have at least been 28 something. I did take the first place trophy in my category - women 50-54. Jerry got third place in his category, and he ran an excellent race - 23 minutes and some seconds. I guess I just need to run more and get into better shape. Maybe I need to lose another 2o pounds or so and that would help my time.

The deer ate nearly all the impatiens I planted around the mailbox. A whole flat of flowers gone in a single night. I love deer but I wish they'd eat somebody else's flowers. We are going to work on the fence around our garden today. My flower seeds are up and I am excited. I can see zinnias and cosmos because I know what the leaves look like. The poppies, I don't know. I see some little seedlings but I can't tell if they are poppies or weeds.

We went swimming at Grayson Lake last week. The girls each invited a friend. They had fun but were paranoid about the dead cicadas in the water. We only went for a few hours but they insisted on packing a picnic lunch for themselves. That was fine because they did all the work. I thought it was odd that they made a thermos of hot soup to enjoy in the 98 degree sun that day. Here are shots from the day. The picture in the water, they are either looking at the little bluegills or dead cicadas...I don't remember.

End of May

The month of May FLEW by!! Less than one week left and it will be filled with Emily's dance recital. She no longer needs me at all back stage which is kind of sad and nice at the same time. I miss watching what goes on behind stage but I like getting to watch the whole show. Emily will be dancing on pointe for the first time in this ballet, unfortunately on very new pointe shoes. I'm sure she will be lovely.

I ran a race in Ironton this morning. Gosh it was a perfectly beautiful morning - a little foggy but the sun was out in full and it was very humid and nearly 60 degrees at 7 AM. It was a 5K through Ironton and the big, old cemetary, which reminded me very much of the old cemetary in Portsmouth. The course was pretty flat, the main hill being an overpass over Rt 52. I struggled to breath through the first mile, but I thought I was going to get to the first mile mark in like 8:45, but the timekeeper called out 9:02. I didn't find a comfortable stride until well after the half-way point. I was disappointed in my time, I wanted to finish under 28, but the sad reality was that my time was more like 29:20...I think, I hope it was no more than that. Anyway, it was a great race - well organized and the route was easy (other than I prefer not to run on concrete and brick is especially tiring...doesn't matter so much for a 5K but I'd hate that for a 10K). I finished 3rd in my age group (female 50-54). The woman who won my age group finished in like 2+ minutes faster than me, and she was 3 years older than me. I have to be inspired. The next race is Run By the River, in Russell in 2 weeks. I have run the course before. It has some gentle hills and one minor hill. It is a very pleasant route through the old part of Russell on the riverfront and then the road that connects Russell to Raceland (along the river).

The late frost spared the cherry trees. Look at these lovelies!

This is a picture of our little sour cherry tree. For some reason, the deer don't eat it. It must be a bumper year because our poor sweet cherry tree even has 6 cherries on it. The deer have mangled the sweet cherry since we planted it and now it's sort of a giraffe tree - a tall skinny twig shaped like a palm tree. The deer eat all they can reach. It looks to me like they even get up on their hind legs to reach what they can. I would cut it down but we need it as a cross pollinator and I'd feel guilty. I think trees have soles...so I hate when they are cut down before they die of natural causes. Especially some of these trees that are like 400+ years old, it makes me sad when they are taken. Slaughtered!

I miss Sarah. She is coming home in June, but I know she has much to do when she gets back.

Here are a couple of old pictures of the girls..these are a couple I like.

The time is late and I have much to do tonight. I will write more later.

About Ireland

I had a great time visiting Sarah and seeing some of the country. It was quite interesting seeing how people live in another country. I loved the countryside and the small towns. The music was awesome! Sarah has improved her playing skills (on both banjo and fiddle) tremendously. I tried the Guiness and you know what? It's just gross. That dark beer is not for me. I liked Jameson until the first hangover, then nevermore. I'm a Kentucky bourbon woman and that's what I drank.

Here's what impressed me about the country-side. All the pasture land and the rock walls - beautiful. The yellow bushes (called Gorse) was blooming and very colorful this time of year. There were all sorts of lovely wildflowers, also most houses had tulip beds that were in bloom. Just about any house that has any sort of grass field (sometimes even very small fields), there would be some sort of livestock in it - horses, sheep, or cattle. The sheep looked pretty normal, but the horses and cattle are huge over there. Something else I noticed, many times you see animals laying in the field just flat like they are dead. If I saw a horse or cow laying like that in a field, I'd assume it was dead.

Sarah's apartment is on the Corrib river and I enjoyed watching the rowing teams practice. Across the river on the other side is a huge pasture with horses. There's a trail that follows the river that people use to run on, walk dogs, and travel back to soccer/football/rugby fields. I didn't count how many fields - like at least 8 of them I think. I ran on the path the mornings we were in Galway, running around the fields and through the wooded trails between them. I saw all sorts of unusual birds - my favorites being the wood pigeons and the magpies. Down toward the last ballfield, across the river is an old castle ruin. I only have one picture of it but it's not git to post. First picture here is a view of some wildflowers growing among some trees along the trail (college building in the background):

The university is big and has lots of international students. There were lots of people vacationing there from other countries as well - I heard all sorts of different languages on the streets. People aren't allowed to smoke in any buildings anywhere in Ireland. Also, not on buses or trains. Here's a no smoking sign:

Some shots of the main university building which was a very impressive place:

Our first adventure outside of Galway was a trip to the Dingle peninsula, and the little town of Dingle. It was a long bus ride, aborted when we got to Tralee because Sarah got a call from her friend Breannan (I doubt I spelled his name correctly) who invited her to meet him in Kilarney for a session. There was no good way to get back to Kilarney by bus so he drove to Tralee and picked us up. Kilarney is a decent sized town (maybe as big as Ashland) and we got there in time for the session. Sarah played with Breannan, who played guitar, and two other musicians, a young couple who later insisted we all spend the night with them. I was so tired that night to begin with and I'd had too much to drink at the pub, I can barely remember anything. We got to their house around 1:30 in the morning I think. They had a lovely little house in Kilarney, and a beautiful dog (a blonde lab) they called Buddie. I kept having trouble remembering their names because they are unusual to me - Emir and Tige - I'm sure those aren't spelled correctly. I kept thinging Lemur and Tiger to help me remember. Emir is an excellent fiddle player, who studied violin in college but was unable to get a jo with the only real orchestra in Ireland. She performs with her husband and is also a music teacher at a primary boy's school. Tige plays a concertina and is quite good. They sounded great together.

The next morning, Emir got up at God knows what time (I wouldn't know, I was dead to the world) and fixed a proper Irish breakfast. Unfortunately, I was much to hung over to even enjoy looking at it. She served 3 kinds of sausage, rashers (bacon), beans, coffee, tee, several kinds of juice, and two kinds of toast (with jelly and butter). She also set out cereal and apologized for not making potatoes as well. She asked how we liked our eggs and I assured her there was no need to make eggs for Sarah and I. Breannan didn't get up for breakfast but ate later when he finally emerged (around noon). We left there after good-byes and visited a national park which was beautiful. I saw the most gigantic rhododendruns I've ever seen in my life, most not yet in bloom but they will be beautiful when they do. I could have spent days there but we only stayed an hour or so, walking parts of a few trails and then making our way through the mountains toward Dingle.

We stopped in a little town called Middletown to see what was happening at a horse show, or perhaps it was just a little festival where farmers were selling livestock and people were selling produce and crafts. Breannan called his son's mother to see if she wanted ducks. She did so he bought 3 adults and 2 babies. He would have bought all babies but the farmer nor his wife knew how to tell the sex of a baby duck. We saw all sorts of horses, ponies, puppies, sheep, and goats for sale, as well as chickens, ducks, and some exotic birds I'm not sure what they were - perhaps pheasants or something like that.

After much twisting and winding mountainous roads, we arrived in Dingle. Breannan dropped us at a bed and breakfast place that he thought would be good. It was a great place to stay. A pleasant room overlooking the bay, plenty of hot water in the shower, and "free" breakfast. The B&B man gave us a decent rate, 35 Euros per person per night. That's one thing I really appreciated about Ireland, the price is the price - no tax or charges added on. The free breakfast was unbelievable. We walked in and there was all sorts of bread, cereal, and fruit spread out on the counter. Then, the inn keeper came in and asked us if we wanted tea and how we wanted our eggs and if we wanted bacon. He made fried eggs, bacon, and toast for us and served us. We spent an extra day in Dingle, Sarah played a session that night with Breannan, his father, Brannan, and his younger brother, Cormick. That turned out to be a very late night, we stayed in the pub after it closed, playing more music and drinking, and then went on to Breannan's apartment for more. Sarah stayed on and I walked back to the B&B..I think I got back around 3:30 in the morning and Sarah came in sometime after that. We got up the next day and explored town a bit more until time to catch the bus to head back to Galway.

The town of Dingle has a lovely harbor and old ruins on top of the hill across the bay (you might be able to make out the tower in the picture of Sarah sitting in the window knitting. She was working on a new pair of socks, a gift for one of her friends. The buildings look a lot alike but they paint the doors every color you can imagine.

This post is getting too long and I need to do other things. I will post this one and do another later on. We visited the Cliffs of Moher and our tour guide was awesome! He gave us some great history about one of the castles and about Ireland in general. He was very entertaining and certainly an unexpected and delightful enhancement to the tour. We had perfect weather for visiting the cliffs. I was more interested in the Burren, the region we went through before we got to the cliffs. I will write more about it later.

I'm Back

I'm Back from Ireland. It's still hard to imagine that I was 1000 miles away just this morning. I have SOOOO much to blog about...and pictures! Just a bit about the trip home...it was L-O-N-G but oh SOOOO much to remember. Some details will have to come later...I keep planning to go upstairs and take a LONG HOT BATH but I keep getting sidetracked. It's 11:40 PM which would be 4:30 AM yesterday. I should be tired but I feel energetic to say the least. Could be this GOOD bourbon. I will say that I wish I'd had a few more days over there, but it's great to be home. Yes, the countryside is beautiful over there, but I prefer my hills to be covered with trees. I'm a river rat - we like the cover. The vacation was incredible - I had a total vacation from work...something I haven't done since I was like 23 years old. More later.

Spring At Last

I think it's finally here to stay - SPRING. I love it. My lilac bush i s blooming and smells like heaven. I'm going to miss our May bush this year, but we had to get rid of it before it ruined the foundation of the house and now I have a fairly large sunny patch of land to play with.

Today, I played my first 9 holes for 2008. I would have preferred to spend the evening at a driving range, but none around was open so the old man and I headed for Sandy Creek. The place wasn't too crowded at all. I teed off with limited confidence but smacked my best drive of the day out to to 150 yard marker in the middle of the fairway. From there, it went ugly. I did make 3 pars today - #2 (par 3), #4 (par 4), and #8 (par 3). I'd say I hit at least one decent shot on every hole, but I lost 3 balls in 9 holes, and visited a few rough knolls and bunkers. I got opportunities to practice uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies. I got to practice the knock down shot under trees. Gee - it was a learning day for me. This year, I'm getting a new putter. It's time.

I will be landing in Ireland in less than a week and I am excited about that. Worried too about how everything will go here at home and work with me away. I still have a ton of loose ends to wrap up before I can hit the road. I've been making lots of lists lately. I am very much looking forward to seeing Sarah in person again. We tried Skyping a few times at first but it was just too frustrating - Sarah's internet connection sucks - and the connection kept dropping every time.

Erin is now a UFAF 2nd degree black belt. We are planning to take a vacation to Vegas and attend the convention so Erin can meet Mr. Norris and have a photo made with him. I was in Vegas when I was18 - it seemed like a strange place to locate a city - out in the middle of nowhere. I imagine land was very cheap in the beginning.

That is all for awhile. The next time I blog, it'll be after I get back.

Whats new?

I haven't taken time for bloggin' lately, too much going on these days. The dance competitions are over and Governor's Cup is over. These were all good experiences but also it's always nice to get those over with for the year. I had nice weekends in Lexington and Louisville with my girls.

Before those, I went to Garyville, Louisiana for work. That turned out to be a great experience for me. I got to meet people in person that I've talked to on the phone every week for the last 5 years. I got to see a plantation house, which was totally awesome. The refinery has a small graveyard within its boundaries and it made me sad. The graves are like two hundred plus years old and what's really neat down there, people are buried above ground, and the little concrete buildings (vaults? crypts? whatever you call them) are elaborate - statues of angels, birds, fancy crosses, etc. Maybe they are even marble and not concrete...I'm not sure. And all around this little cemetary is an old iron fence...but then around the iron fence is a huge chain link fence, and gigantic 500,000 tanks, a giant cracking tower, and an isom unit and noise so loud you can barely hear yourself think. If my loved one was buried there, I'd have to move them. Nobody is resting in peace there. It makes me think that I'd as soon be cremated and have my ashes dumped in the river. Then nobody could build such an abomination on my grave.

I had an unforgetable trip to the French Quarter. Our host, aka "the controller", which was quite an appropriate label in more ways than one, made sure nobody left there without a hangover the next day. He generously bought drinks at every bar we entered, selecting the drink and ordering in huge quantity. I would have never ordered or drank any of the drinks he ordered for us - exotic, fruity, mixes of God knows what. After the first two, I didn't care...they all tasted the same. We took 3 cars down there and I left with the "sane" group, although 3 of us in that group paid hell the next day. I was sick the next morning, in the airport, on the plane of the first hop, in the next airport, and finally in the last airport before I got home. It took me nearly 48 hours to recover. USAir lost my luggage and I didn't get it until 2 days later. I'm happy they lost it coming home rather than going down. Dan sent me some of his photos from the evening - mementos.

Soon I must get on line and look for my ticket to Ireland. The hardest part is committing to a time. It's so hard to get away without missing anything. I have tickets to Evita and I hate to miss it, but I might have to just miss and let the girls or Jerry invite somebody to use my ticket. Also, I don't want to miss Erin's test (for 2nd degree UFAF black belt). I'm pretty sure I'll be missing the spring orchestra recital..but I will survive it. My favorite part of that is seeing the kids all spiffied up in suits and dresses, more so than the music they produce. I miss Sarah though, and I'll be happy to see her even if it's only for a few days. We will spend a night in an enchanted (or perhaps haunted) castle, look for mermaids, ride bikes, sip tea in the afternoon, explore, and I hope I'll hear my sweet songbird sing. I suppose I'll take my crappy little camera and trust Sarah to take the good pictures and send them to me. Maybe I'll buy a memory card for her camera as a bribe.

That's all I can think of for now.