It's beginning to look like fall

The fall colors are sneaking up on me. I will drive down the same road once or twice a week, and the next thing I know, the whole tree is orange. Or yellow, or red. For the most part, everything is still green, however, on the fringe, you can certainly see fall colors sprinkling their dots all about the landscape. Now, if only the cooler weather would also do some sprinkling..... We are still in the 70's and 80's during the day.

My friend Naomi let me borrow her Mantis tiller. I was beyond sceptical, to say the least. I mean we basically live on a rock that exploded, so it is splotchy patches of grass with millions and millions of rocks in all sizes. No way would that teeny-tiny Mantis work on our ground. I don't say this very often, but I was WRONG! That thing is da' bomb!!! Not only does it spit rocks out like watermelon seeds, but it pulverizes our ground like a coffee grinder does coffee beans. Seriously, it does. I am a tad depressed that I haven't had one for the last 16 years that I have been shoveling like a prisoner through tons and tons of soil. Ya'll know how much I garden, so I really am trying to get over the fact that I have wasted tons and tons of time shovelling when I could have been Mantising. I'm pretty much over it, as long as I don't think about it too much.

And about those rocks, anyway..... Do you know right before we moved here, one of the things on my want list was, um, rocks. In Louisiana, nary a rock exists. It was harsh reality for me to accept at first, and again, I got over it like I always do. But when we were talking about our move, I prayed for lots of rocks, because I missed them so much. Isn't God just the comedian??? I could tell you of many times I prayed for something and God gave to me beyond my wildest dreams. For some reason, He thinks I really meant it when I jestfully said I wanted to be surrounded by gorgeous men (4 sons and 1 hunky hubby is more than any girl can handle). And what about the time I prayed that I would live in the mountains and be able to take the kids on lots of fantastic outdoor hikes and picnics? What an awesome God we serve!

Corn Tassel

An unusual place

A friend from church took us to the strangest place last week. It was a replica village of the town Corn Tassel, TN. It was built on a hillside of boulders in an eldery man's front yard. He has spent over 20 years adding stores, churches, houses, barns, etc. It also is adorned with all the details that any town would need - people, horses, vehicles, and lots of other things that don't even seem to go in a town, but still look great in all their rusty splendor. It was huge, too. It was probably over forty feet long and had 3 different levels. I thought it would make a great I Spy book.........

A perfect day

We had such a great day on Sunday. Church was very inspiring, to me at least, and then we spent the day on top of Lookout Mountain. In fact, we hiked along the very distinctive apex that you can see almost no matter where you are in the valley. It was very beautiful, but you know how I get, I was a little nervous because there were some very scary cliffs. Fortunately, the message at church was about faith. It really nourished me and I was better equipped to relax. We got some ice cream cones at a very quaint Lookout Cafe and just enjoyed being together as a family and doing something new.

By the way, the view was indescribable...... come see for yourself.

The Summit of Lookout Mountain